Indian Man Charged With Blasphemy For Exposing "Miracle"

bhagwad writes "When a statue in Mumbai began to miraculously drip tears, huge crowds began to gather, pray, and collect the water in vials. Sanal Edamaruku has exposed such bogus miracles before, and when he was called in, his investigations showed that it was nothing more than a nearby drainage. The entire investigation was caught on tape. The priests were outraged and demanded an apology. When he refused, a case of 'blasphemy' was registered at the police station and they now want to have him arrested." In related news, today Kuwait's parliament "passed amendments to the Gulf state's penal code stipulating the death penalty for those who curse God, Islam's Prophet Mohammed or his wives." However, they made no change to the penalty for playing a joke national anthem at a sporting event.

Comments

Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially if they got elected in Oklahoma, Tennessee, or Arizona.

I say Mitt Romney picks that statue for a running mate to solve his Mormon problem. The only trick will be telling the two apart.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[dlgeek]

It'd be easy - only one of them would have political convictions that are set in stone.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think we're talking about the same Mitt Romney.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the same meaning of "stone"

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[symbolset]

Ah, it's silly season again, when the astroturfers for products and companies are displaced somewhat by the astroturfers for politicians. I always hated this part of the cycle. But it is what it is.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[Grayhand]

It'd be easy - only one of them would have political convictions that are set in stone.

Romney has lots of different political convictions that are set in stone, most of them on health care.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[ArsenneLupin]

Fortunately, the Republicans already had their post-coital enema, so at least that particular category of political jokes is now gone.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[Barsteward]

He's the one with the funny underpants

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[absolut_kurant]

Only one of them will be able to express tears ;)

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[M. Baranczak]

And the silly season just keeps getting longer and longer. How about this: Obama's been president for 3 years now, so we've had plenty of time to judge his job performance. His challengers have been campaigning for almost as long, and they've had plenty of opportunity to explain what they'd do differently. If you haven't decided yet, you never will. Just hold the damn election next week and get it over with.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[Ameryll]

Only one of them would have the emotional capacity to cry.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[Moryath]

You forgot his convictions about keeping women barefoot and pregnant at home. That's a key tenet of Mormonism.

Meanwhile, for the benefit of Kuwaitis:
#1 - God is a drunken asshole who starts wars, causes nothing but suffering, and is such a piss poor retarded deity that he "designed" humans with a windpipe crossing the food pipe and a reproductive system crossing the waste elimination system. If God were an engineer he'd have been flunked out in freshman courses and barred from reentry before he REALLY hurt someone... oh crap too late.

#2 - Mohammed was a warmonger, a war criminal, a genocidal fucktard, and a pedophile. Deal with it.

#3 - Mohammed's wives... don't really have much to say about them. For the most part, they were just a part of the society they were living in, and I really feel sorry for Khadija, who started out owning and operating her own business and only married Mohammed because she wanted a young boytoy (kinda like the Demi Moore/Ashton Kutcher deal) and instead wound up with him taking her life, turning her into a virtual slave, and fooling around with as many other women as he could get his hands on.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[happy_place]

I'm mormon, and my wife's not barefoot nor pregnant. It's interesting how desperate the lies get when there's political interest at stake. You almost sound religious.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[Moryath]

Mormons.

Mormonism to this day insists the following things:
- Women cannot ascend to the "highest level" unless dragged there attached to a man.
- Women cannot enter the priesthood
- The primary way for Mormon women to become "garmented" is through not just being married, but bearing children.

The phenomenon of women as workers in society under Brigham Young came about SOLELY because women began to outnumber the men in large number, due to the practices necessary to send young men away from the society in order to ensure enough young, unmarried women desperate enough to become married that they could be given to the old pervs of the Mormon hierarchy as second, third, fourth, or higher number wives as a form of enslavement. From a visit by Sir Richard Burton to the Mormons: "The motive for polygamy in Utah is economy. Servants are rare and costly; it is cheaper and more comfortable to marry them."

You sound like a fucking mor(m)on who doesn't understand the LDS "religion."

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[Moryath]

Oh, and:

Here, educate yourself.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[quacking duck]

This is why I like(d) our elections in Canada--no set dates, so instead of constantly campaigning representatives were doing their damn jobs. Once an election was called, it was done and over with in about 5 weeks.

That changed in the last few years, for the country and several provinces too. And we're already seeing the consequences of always-on campaigning, as the Conservative party in power are already airing sleazy attack ads--3 years before the next election.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[geekoid]

Then you aren't really practicing your religion.
If your religion calls for wearing a funny hat, you wear a funny hate or you aren't practicing it. Just using it for personal wanker, or are just too much of a coward to admit to society you don't really believe.

Women are second tier people in Mormonism.
The whole religion you allegedly practice is based on women having children and never being equal to men.

It's misogyny under the guise of religion. I suggest you actually read some factual text about the beginning of your alleged religion,, and it history.
It's a cult designed for one person to control the others in a group and control their women. Even if it meant killing a child; which he did.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[santiagoanders]

Also:

  - Men cannot ascend to the "highest level "unless dragged there attached to a woman.
  - Men cannot bear children.
  - Your last point is just wrong.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[Whorhay]

Beat me to is, also on point 2. In the LDS church having the Priesthood isn't the same as in other religions. It doesn't grant power or authority over other people. Hell even callings which are gender specific don't bring any kind of benefit to that person. How many people that aren't sociopaths want to serve as a Bishop, Elder's Quorum President, Highpriest Group Leader, Relief Society President, Stake President, or any of the other numerous leadership positions?

And in the case that you ever run into a person that appears to be abusing their calling all you have to do is take it up the chain, so to speak. The LDS leadership have no motivation to keep an asshole in a position of authority and it'll be rectified immediately. I've personally witnessed an instance where a leader stepped out of line and they were "released" from that calling within the week.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[mycroft16]

Point 1: Men cannot ascend to the "highest level" unless dragged there attached to a woman. It's called marriage. Men don't get in alone and neither do women. It's not some "men only club." Point 2: Not really sure what your point here is. As a statement of fact, yes, it's true, but it is true of many religions. Point 3: Once again wrong. The primary way for Mormon women to become "garmented" is actually a ceremony in the temple called the endowment. It has nothing to do with being married nor with bearing children. Most happen to do it around the time of their marriage, but that many do it long before that time. Having children actually has nothing to do with it. It might help, when making claims, to have some reality in there. Plus, throwing ad hominem attacks into your arguments doesn't exactly make you sound believable. It just makes your claims sound desperate and weak.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[Moryath]

Bullshit.

Point 1: Men cannot ascend to the "highest level" unless dragged there attached to a woman. It's called marriage. Men don't get in alone and neither do women.

And in the mormon enslavement religion, the point was to ensure that all MEN had an ample supply of women in which to take multiple wives. There was no worry about a man being unmarried, but women were forced into a cattle call in hopes of getting one to attach to.

Point 3: Once again wrong. The primary way for Mormon women to become "garmented" is actually a ceremony in the temple called the endowment. It has nothing to do with being married nor with bearing children.

On this point you are simply wrong. Women are NOT allowed to be "garmented" in the Endowment Ceremony unless they are married in the church or are one of the few girls (very, very few) selected to be sent "on mission" as a reminder to the boys to keep up their appearances while on mission. They are not allowed to ascend from the "base level", which allows them to set foot in the temple but no further, until they have actually bred like cows for the mor(m)on misogynist religion.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[Andraax]

If you had actually checked up on Ann Romney, you would have found out that they had their first child living in a $75 / month apartment while Mitt was finishing up college. Hardly the "million dollar mansion" you suggest. And what has she been doing for the last decade? Fighting cancer and multiple sclerosis.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[knarfling]

Wrong on sooo many levels

- Women cannot ascend to the "highest level" unless dragged there attached to a man.

You forgot: Men cannot ascend to the "highest level" unless dragged there attached to a woman. Perhaps you should check out The Family: A Proclamation to the World to see what the "LDS 'religion'" really believes rather than what you claim they believe.

Although many women do wait to go through the temple until they get married, it is not a requirement. Many women choose to go through the temple long before they get married. Having children has NEVER been a requirement to become "garmented"

And, for the record, the world's oldest and largest women's organization was founded in 1842 by the LDS church. And Utah granted women full voting rights in 1870 while they were still a territory. Although the US government tried to take away those rights, when Utah was admitted into the union in 1896, women had full voting rights again. Most states east of the Mississippi River did not give voting rights to women until forced to by the 1915 passage of the 19th Amendment. But yeah, those mormons always thought women were second class citizens that shouldn't vote or work. Keep believing that if it makes you feel better.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[seepho]

I'm an engineer and I'm constantly educating myself about Engineering and fellow engineers. I didn't know everything there is to know about the field the day I received my diploma, much like the OP didn't know everything there was to know about Mormonism the day he put on his magic underwear.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[bitt3n]

I'm mormon, and my wife's not barefoot nor pregnant.

I am sorry for your loss.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[airdweller]

"The only trick will be telling the two apart."
The statue is the less creepy one.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[minstrelmike]

Compare the fundamental tenets of Mormonism as espoused by Joe Smith against the fundamentals espoused by Baha'u'llah (if you want to compare teaching of contemporary Prophets). The Baha'is win hands down.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[FrigBot]

Last year on a road trip I made it to Salt Lake City. It's a nice city and I like how the whole metro area is in that valley. But I wanted to also see the Temple square. We got there just in time that day to get a guided tour of some of the areas. It was just me and my friend but a local guy showed up too, huge smile on his face constantly, with his briefcase. He seemed to know that there's a good-sized Mormom community in Edmonton, AB where I'm from. He was just along for the tour even though he'd been through it before, he said.

I found the buildings there impressive, especially that big stage that lifts up hydraulically and stuff. The square itself was also clean and tidy. Later, we were showed around by two young women through the rest of the square. At one point, the nice looking one from San Jose said that Joseph Smith's answer to his question of why there were so many different Christian faith offshoots was to create another one. Seemed wierd to me. Anyway I gave up my phone number and yes I did get calls from them (not the nice looking one) when I got back home. But I wasn't interested in joining. Another wierd thing to me was that those two young women would only spend a limited amount of time with us and whisked themselves away.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[DC2088]

I never understood the insistence of the religious to, when the subject of criticism, drag the critic down and call them "religious" as well. Seriously, isn't that just recognizing that the religious mindset is a problem but then trying to commit a tu quoque? It's like the folks who insist that "atheism is a religion" (by no means is that argument coherent, given any generally accepted definition of atheism) in a hackneyed attempt to establish an "even playing field" of irrationality. Also it's an asinine comment to make. inb4 downmodded, but at least I didn't post as AC.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[c 0xFF]

Don't pretend to know what you're talking about, because you might as well be talking about the religion of the mold on my cheese, for all you "know" about Mormons. It must be nice to be able to just make things up, but most people need reality.

Here's the facts, but I expect you to spew more nonsense soon enough.

The rules for men and women are the same. They must be endowed (receive their garments) in order to serve a mission or to be married in the temple. The ceremony occurs shortly before. If a member of the church is not endowed by the time they are 30 years old, they can discuss with their Bishop about receiving their endowments.

And thus we see that you don't know anything about Mormons that is actually based in reality.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[Thing 1]

"designed" humans with a windpipe crossing the food pipe and a reproductive system crossing the waste elimination system.

Understood that you were going for humor. However: the windpipe is helpful for dislodging stuck food, without the need to vomit. And the waste elimination system helps clear away some of the sticky residue. So both are features, not bugs...

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[c 0xFF]

The only religion not being practiced here is a fantacy religion that only exists in your head.

If you ask Mormons what they believe, they'll tell you one thing. If you ask someone with an axe to grind (often an ex-Mormon or another church's pastor) ,they'll say something completely different. While both will be biased in one way or another, only one is actively trying to misportray Mormons.

If you want to know about what a religion believes, read what it publishes, listen to what it teaches, and talk to its practicioners. Especially when it comes to the Mormons, because of how much nonsense is out there on them.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[StikyPad]

The motive for polygamy in Utah is economy. Servants are rare and costly; it is cheaper and more comfortable to marry them.

Meh. The same could be said of monogamy, especially up until the late 60s and early 70s. The "anti-polygamy/pro-monogamy" platform seems to be based as much in religious values as polygamy. The problem, in my view, with polygamist religious sects is that it's often not (or at some point ceases to be) consensual. But that's a problem with cults, not polygamy. As long as it's consensual, I say let people do what they want.

Re:Sounds like they'd be right at home in the GOP

[centar]

God is supposed to be kind, loving, faithful, forgive you and love you unconditionally... Now tell me if Dog doesnt meet these criteria! These God fearing fools, Relinazis, couldn't see God even if they bumped into him. They have even started spelling God as G-D claiming that God shouldnt be spelled in any way that Dog is spelled! So, we should now start spelling Dog as D-G as well, so the dumb effort is neutralized!

Hopefully

[jeremy85mai]

Hopefully the world will start to grow more accepting toward skeptical beliefs(such as atheism, Agnosticism, etc). It makes me sad how often these beliefs are persecuted :(

Re:Hopefully

[grege1]

The world is rapidly going the other way. Back in the 60s and 70s people thought that The Age of Reason had won and we could move into the future with hope. Now reason is under attack from the religions of the world. And it is getting worse by the day. All the fundamentalists from all religions should be made to sit and watch The Life of Brian at least one a year and eat halibut.

Re:Hopefully

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think reason is under attack by religion specifically. It just seems to be popular to be a moron these days. The number of well-established scientific theories you disagree with is a matter for competitive sport.

Re:Hopefully

[jeremy85mai]

Ah, ok. I wouldn't know all that well(Born in the early 90's). It just seems like(or, at least, online) atheism is a lot louder about it's beliefs or with its objections to things. Do you think it's possible that why we see so much moronic stuff is because we're just being louder/more public about it? It seems like that could be a possibility.

Re:Hopefully

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact they're getting louder doesn't mean they're winning. It might be taken as a sign of desperation.

The first people to leave a majority religion are the ones who don't fear ostracism, the rebellious, the suborn and the alienated mostly. After them are the ones who go when it ceases to be socially unacceptable. Then there are those who leave when it becomes increasing obvious that their faith and their religion have parted company, and the religion is no longer something they want to be a part of, disgruntled moderates for the most part.

The very last hangers on, the ones who will never, ever leave as long as they still draw breath, are the fanatics. A religion can have just as many total fanatics when it comprises 90% of the population as it does when it comprises 40% - they go from being a few bad apples to the gradual majority who drive away those disgruntled moderates I mentioned above.

Re:Hopefully

[shentino]

What I'd like to know is how any religion that professes to believe in an all knowing and creative deity would deny the mastery apparent in the minds of its own creations.

I mean seriously, why would God create a brilliant analytical brain, only to shun its use?

Re:Hopefully

[Black Parrot]

I mean seriously, why would God create a brilliant analytical brain, only to shun its use?

Probably the same reason He created fossils for dinosaurs that never actually existed.

Re:Hopefully

[TempestRose]

God Damnit, no points, but thank you for the laugh...
( Yes, intended. )

Re:Hopefully

[mvdwege]

The current crop of atheists is indeed loud, and particularly obnoxious. Maybe they're the ones to blame for the rise in religionism?

I mean, when I see the sheer seething stupidity right here on Slashdot whenever religion comes up, I'm almost tempted to join a monastery.

In the Seventies we had 'Humanists'; they surely were a whole lot nicer than the current crop of idiots.

Mart

Re:Hopefully

[TheGratefulNet]

Maybe they're the ones to blame for the rise in religionism

yeah, they're to blame.

you nailed it.

(how this was not marked troll, I don't know. but to blame athiests FOR the rise in religion is hand-waving that not even sky daddies could pull off)

Re:Hopefully

[Fluffeh]

The world is rapidly going the other way.

Actually, I think it is becoming more polarized. I am fairly young, but I see more and more people moving into non-practising belief, moving into an agnostic belief system or totally throwing out and declaring atheism. Most people that I know who are religious are quite moderate and totally respect the chosen paths of others, but in this age of instant communication and viral sharing of video/blogs etc I find that many fundamentalists who in previous decades may have only been heard in small secluded places of worship or backroom debates are now able to spout their messages to the masses. This sadly can result in many moderates who may have previously never heard or even seen such messages being taken in and following.

I think globally, we are moving (very slowly) to a much more moderate stance on religion, but there are pockets where small fundamentalist wildfires have started. Hopefully those flames will be doused before they spread into too much of a firestorm.

Living in Australia (which is quite multi-national in ethnicity and religion) I am always utterly amused when fundamentalists of any nature demand to be tolerated for their beliefs while spouting anti-tolerant messages against others the next moment. I can't help myself and weigh in asking that exact sort of question - I started to walk out of church on Easter Sunday just passed (I go to church at Easter and Christmas to appease my parents when I visit) when the priest started spouting about propsed changes to the Australian Law by changing "Marrige to be between two people, rather than a man and a woman" which would lead to "the fall of Christians and civilisation" at which point I was too disgusted to stay for the rest. He saw me walking out and pulled me up on it. I accepted the challenge and politely debated him on the arguments for and against for around ten minutes in front of the entire congregation.

Re:Hopefully

[exomondo]

If only we could master that and create 80 year old scotch without having to wait 80 years.

Re:Hopefully

[niftydude]

I have NEVER heard a Christian claim that dinos never existed. Nice straw man.

Actually, a Jehovah's witness who knocked on my door barely couple of weeks ago said exactly that. She completely refused to believe in any kind of evolution at all.

Normally I'd say you have to get out more if you want to meet these people with all sorts of weird and wonderful beliefs, but in this case the crazies came to me.

Re:Hopefully

[FrootLoops]

Your two posts summarize some of the major problems with religion debates. (The GP may not have been serious, but assume for now that it was.)

mvdwege:
  * Unfair generalizations: "The current crop of atheists is indeed loud, and particularly obnoxious." People are not a ubiquitous mass and treating them that way inevitably leads to problems. Humans like to personify everything, especially groups of other humans, but that natural urge needs to be replaced with complex mental models that accurately reflect reality to the extent a human mind can do so.
  * Defensiveness: "sheer seething stupidity" ... "current crop of idiots" -- those statements will only convince people to fight you.

TheGratefulNet:
  * Sarcastic responses: "yeah, they're to blame." See defensiveness.
  * Poor reasoning: "to blame athiests FOR the rise in religion is hand-waving". The obvious argument (likely missed because of defensiveness) is that religion felt threatened by a rise in atheism and responded by becoming louder. Whether there's any truth to that argument is a good question, but it isn't patently ridiculous hand-waving.

Each of the problems above is caused by an emotional response overcoming clear thinking. People in general could stand to be more like Spock when it comes to debates.

Re:Hopefully

[Dr_Barnowl]

Not a straw man, there are those Christians that claim that archaeologists who find dinosaur skeletons are the equivalent of modern day cryptozoologists who use hybrid taxidermy to support their claims. The more sophisticated dino-deniers believe that dinosaur fossils are a test of faith, and presumably take the fact that they fit so perfectly into the fossil record without a trace of scientific incongruity as evidence that their deity is almighty and powerful enough to fake evidence really well.

There's also those who claim that dinosaurs lived at the same time as humans and are mentioned in the bible, despite this argument being easily refuted by geological dating of the rocks the fossils are found in.

Re:Hopefully

[Fluffeh]

Our local Member of Parliament was actually present during this (he is quite Christian and was helping out with the collections etc).

The point that I was making (and hope that he listened to) was that we cannot impose our values on others if we expect them to respect ours. The "man and woman" thing is based in Christianity and Islam, but if we expect minorities to respect our mainstream views, how can we not also respect theirs (even if they conflict with our own) and allow them to practise them as they please? Of course there are boundries, ones that directly harm others or teach/incite hate, so no, if one group believes in murder, we shouldn't put that into law saying it is okay, but who are is anyone to say who can and cannot get married based on the mainstream beliefs?

Re:Hopefully

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Uhhh, what beliefs are those exactly? Do you know the definition of the word "atheism"?

Not believing in something is not a belief. Pretty simple, don't you think?

Not believing in something has nothing to do with the crazies who believe all sorts of wacky shit being more vocal. There are not two sides to this. You either DO believe in wacky shit, or you DO NOT.

Get it?

Re:Hopefully

[bryan1945]

I cannot comment on the world, but I can comment on my experiences here. People say they're atheist or agnostic, no problem. Someone says they're Christian, like I have in the past, and I'll get a bunch of replies mocking my belief in "fairy tales" and "how's that intelligent design going for you." And that's all I say- I'm a Christian, don't defend anything, don't push any agenda. I'll await the derision over in the left corner.
The point being I get derided just because I say I'm something different from you, but Cthulhu help me if I try to say anything against atheists/agnostics here, which I never have, BTW.

Re:Hopefully

[grege1]

This must be Australia corner. Our Prime Minister is female, single, childless and an atheist. When such a person could be elected as the president of the USA I will believe in faeries at the bottom of the garden. The mad monk can keep the crap he is trying to import from American politics.

Re:Hopefully

[mwvdlee]

The obvious argument (likely missed because of defensiveness) is that religion felt threatened by a rise in atheism and responded by becoming louder.

For that argument to be true, religion must have become louder. In general religion has not become louder. Yes, they get more media attention; that is the price to pay for increasing the number of media outlets.

As a counter argument, I'd ask; do you think it logical for any reasonable individual to become religious purely out of protest to atheïsts? If there is indeed a growing religious base, surely the reasons must be rooted in society in general. People in general don't just suddenly switch from non-religious to religious.

Re:Hopefully

[mvdwege]

Who is the moron here? I'd put my money on the one totally oblivious to sarcasm.

Really, all you and the ones who modded me Troll accomplished is prove my point: the current crop of atheists, especially the ones haunting Slashdot, are as humourlessly fanatic as religious fundamentalists.

Mart

Re:Hopefully

[mvdwege]

Actually, I was aiming for +1, Funny, but unfortunately the atheists on Slashdot are a bunch of humourless fundamentalists with obviously no sense of sarcasm at all.

Re:Hopefully

[Barsteward]

But... but.. they did exist. we put saddles on them and rode them like horses... http://creationmuseum.org/

Re:Hopefully

[mwvdlee]

You've never heard of the christians that believe the entire world is only 6000 years old?
Those are the same that don't believe in dino's.
They "know for a fact" the world is 6000 years old, therefore any evidence to the contrary must be untrue.

Re:Hopefully

[FrootLoops]

To be explicit, I meant that sarcasm usually cases the other person to get defensive.

Re:Hopefully

[chrismcb]

What does this story have to do with atheism, agnosticism, or well any other skeptical beliefs?
Are you saying that if you are of the particular faith you HAVE to believe the statue was crying?

Re:Hopefully

[chrismcb]

but to blame athiests FOR the rise in religion is hand-waving that not even sky daddies could pull off)

Of course it is the atheists fault. If they would just stop being converted to non atheism, religions would stop growing.

Re:Hopefully

[Psychotria]

I love your dinosaur link. They even provide the "scientific names" for these creatures in a nice table: "dinosaur", "brachiosaurus" and "kronosaurus".

Re:Hopefully

[Barsteward]

You're probably part the sensible section of christians. But when you get the rabid fanatics that are putting the clock back with all their horrible laws against women in the bible belt and you don't say anything about it, then you become part of the problem of misogyny etc put forward as laws. The moderate middle ground christians should push back against the fundementalists in the same way moderate islamists need to push back against the fundies in their religion.

But then again, if you are not a fundie you are not following your religion to the letter and you are cherry picking out the bad bits which makes you half ways to dropping this irrational belief in a man-made god.

Re:Hopefully

[Grishnakh]

Everything on here is "hand-waving", but his hypothesis is sound: the idea is that if someone advocates a cause, but does so in a manner that puts off people who aren't committed to that cause, it can cause them to run the other way. Humans usually look at the person delivering a message, and if they don't like that person for some reason (they act like an asshole, for instance), they'll reject the message. Extremely rational people might not, but most humans aren't extremely rational.

Re:Hopefully

[aztracker1]

Agnosticism isn't a belief. Generally, those who self identify as agnostic are either deist or atheist, they just can't commit to that much.

Re:Hopefully

[marcello_dl]

I dunno about other religions but a FUNDAMENTALIST Christian cannot force anybody to do anything, he has no ground whatsoever to do that in the scriptures and the example of that guy Jesus, and the first Christians.

If centuries later some people decide it's right to prevent faith by forcing (to believe or not to believe it's irrelevant), this is out from the FUNDAMENTAL concept isn't it.

You're being trolled and fell perfectly for the trap. Like the other side did.

Re:Hopefully

[KeensMustard]

The world is rapidly going the other way. Back in the 60s and 70s people thought that The Age of Reason had won and we could move into the future with hope.

Yes, but the disillusionment with the "age of reason" (modernism) is what led to post modernism - The Age of Reason didn't actually lead to any more reason.

Now reason is under attack from the religions of the world. And it is getting worse by the day.

Nonsense. Reason and religion are not mutually exclusive, and have coexisted for a long time, and continue to do so.

Re:Hopefully

[FrootLoops]

In general religion has not become louder.

I'm currently unconvinced either way, and I'm too young to have my own personal opinion here. Do you have some solid evidence that might convince me? The opinion of an expert in modern religious groups would go a long way with me. Also, your diaeresis reminded me that this may vary too much depending on region to discuss in the crude terms we're using.

As a counter argument, I'd ask; do you think it logical for any reasonable individual to become religious purely out of protest to atheists?

There's no reason to restrict ourselves to reasonable individuals. I imagine very few people convert to some religion simply to protest atheism--a more likely path to conversion is through youth outreach targeting kids in non-religious families. Tim Tebow, an American football player who prays while kneeling just before games, gives an interesting example here. His actions made national headlines and made many people at least think about Christianity. I'm sure he's a hero to thousands of children, including some non-religious ones, a few of whom will convert who wouldn't without his actions.

People in general don't just suddenly switch from non-religious to religious.

Well, one often hears that older people get religion as they near death (though I don't know how true this is). I think the more important point in today's world is not people switching from atheism to some religion, but rather already religious people becoming more vocal about their religion.

Re:Hopefully

[Darinbob]

I think a big reason is that many religious groups feel they are losing power or being marginalized. This is what many of them claim. Some of this is indeed just an attempt to prove that they are still relevant and have power. If this person is arrested then the priests have succeeded in creating intimidation for others, if the person is not arrested then at least the priests have said loudly "we still matter, don't ignore us" and have rallied the faithful a bit more.

Blasphemy laws are just a way to get power, stifle dissent, and create a homogenous society. If divine beings really cared about blasphemy then they can mete out punishment themselves without help from puny humans.

Re:Hopefully

[Darinbob]

It's a test!

Re:Hopefully

[master_p]

And damn right they do. It is time for you to reexamine your position and think critically about the world, including your religion. You are part of a segment of the population that, by not thinking critically, you help perpetuate the myths and all their negative aspects, as well as the social structure that leads to huge inequalities between people.

And before you say 'freedom of religion', I'd say yes, there is freedom, but it is high time to end the mass insanity called religion. Being free to exercise religion results in far worse things than mocking you because you believe in fairy tails.

Think about only this: without the excuse of God, how many politicians would have to find another way to persuade us to follow them in their quest to serve their buddies' interests.

Re:Hopefully

[FrootLoops]

You've made me curious. How is someone supposed to tell when you're being sarcastic, considering how many silly statements get made on the internet? Many people use smilies, italics, excessive punctuation, sarcasm tags, etc., but you use none of the above.

In my own case, I originally thought you were serious, but you had more karma than I would expect of a troll, so I glanced through a few of your recent posts for more information. The picture I got was of a thick-skinned but paradoxically insecure, acerbic person who states strong, controversial opinions half-seriously and who sometimes overstates their points as sarcasm. Of course, this analysis is all preliminary and would need a fair amount more evidence to confirm or deny, but it was enough for me to write "(The GP may not have been serious, but assume for now that it was.)".

Re:Hopefully

[Anonymous Coward]

That's one way of illustrating his point. He says that he's a Christian and you accuse him of not thinking critically. How do you know that he doesn't have a PhD in theology?

Re:Hopefully

[grege1]

"Reason and religion are not mutually exclusive" - they do not have to be, but when you read of the constant attacks on teaching Evolution in the USA and the creation of Creationist Museums that show people frolicking with dinosaurs then you have say that there is a growing religious attack on common sense. And it is not just in America. In the Islamic world Evolution is under attack as well. The deeply devout seem to struggle with a world that is much older than 6000 years. It is ironic that the Catholics seem to be the new home of religious accommodation with science.

Re:Hopefully

[crutchy]

no i'm brian, and so is my wife!

Re:Hopefully

[Anonymous Coward]

despite this argument being easily refuted by geological dating of the rocks the fossils are found in.

You counter religious believe with science, by definition an all knowing, all mighty god can fake the age of those fossils. Even worse, how do you know that the world existed ten years ago? Most of your life could be faked memories.

Science is about observing and understanding the world, for this to work you have to assume that a) there is no god or b) he does not mess with your observations. You can not disprove god or his doings as anything you can observe would be provided by god if he exists. The only thing you can prove is that the world (created by god?) does not agree with some parts of the religious texts mostly created by humans (that had limited guidance by god? ).

Re:Hopefully

[crutchy]

fundamentalism has gone out of fashion... the new craze is #extremism

Re:Hopefully

[Anonymous Coward]

And damn right they do. It is time for you to reexamine your position and think critically about the world, including your religion. You are part of a segment of the population that, by not thinking critically, you help perpetuate the myths and all their negative aspects, as well as the social structure that leads to huge inequalities between people.

And before you say 'freedom of religion', I'd say yes, there is freedom, but it is high time to end the mass insanity called religion. Being free to exercise religion results in far worse things than mocking you because you believe in fairy tails.

Think about only this: without the excuse of God, how many politicians would have to find another way to persuade us to follow them in their quest to serve their buddies' interests.

What a righteous ponce you are.

It's people like you that I wish would go think critically somewhere far away, Mars perhaps.

Thinking critically does not equal being a screechy paladin convinced wholly in the rightness of your own perspective.

Perhaps just as importantly, thinking critically never precluded civil debate and mutual respect if both parties are willing. Perhaps you should look into it.

Re:Hopefully

[houghi]

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
                                                                              - Epicurus [341â"270 B.C.]

Theologians can pursuade themselves of anything. Anyone who can worship a trinity and insists that his religion is a monotheism can believe anything -- just give him time to rationalize it.
                          -Robert A. Heinlein, JOB: A Comedy of Justice

Re:Hopefully

[niftydude]

You are going to tell me what I heard now?

The conversation I had with her definitely covered dinosaurs. She was not confused about what she was saying, and neither was I.

I realise that this might not be the official teaching of the Jehovah's witnesses, but she was a christian, and that was her personal belief.

Re:Hopefully

[crutchy]

i'm not christian, but i'm not aware of anything in the book of genesis that specifically and explicitly precludes the existence of the dinosaurs. to me it would appear it merely skimps over it for lack of interest, similarly to how the scientific religion skimps over the short period of time when most of the known universe was apparently created (wrapping it up neatly and conveniently in a so called "big bang").

Re:Hopefully

[mvdwege]

Stop being defensive. I wasn't referring to you, you at least considered the sarcasm.

On the other hand, the pop-psychology analysing is a great way to make friends.

Mart

Re:Hopefully

[crutchy]

agreed. i swear there were velociraptors in the garden of eden. the apple told me so, right after i ate the pretty orange mushroom

Re:Hopefully

[crutchy]

you've obviously never been to isla nublar, because if you had you would know that dinosaurs exist today!

Re:Hopefully

[BigZee]

You've made a crucial mistake. Although there may well be atheists that do hold personal beliefs of one kind or another, in principle, atheism is not having beliefs, at least when it comes to religion. As a consequence, most atheists tend to have a stronger interest in science and the scientific method than many theists. To use your words, it's no surprise that there is an increase in atheists becoming 'louder', it's a simple consequence of the way that religion, particularly fundamentalists, have been dragging reason in a backward direction.

Re:Hopefully

[FrootLoops]

This is unrelated to your post, but you make me wonder, how does your belief impact others outside of your religion? For instance, I'm gay and have an agenda because of it: talk about it sometimes, perhaps just in passing, with the goal of getting people used to the idea so we can be more accepted. Do you have any equivalent behavior?

Re:Hopefully

[AmonTheMetalhead]

Atheism is mainstream in Europe. Christianity is steadily declining. However, due to migration, islam is on the rise and we all know how that goes....

Re:Hopefully

[AmonTheMetalhead]

I still think it's basic genetics. I can't even conceive the idea to put belief (let alone faith) in something that's unprovable. Sure, I can suspend disbelief during a movie and all, but my whole life? Unfathomable.
It would actually be kind of ironic if evolution was the cause for the existence of religion I guess.

The best quote I ever heard was this one:
Stephen F. Roberts: "...I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

Re:Hopefully

[Barsteward]

Not sure it could have skimped over it for a lack of interest, apart from shitting themselves when a dinosaur peaked around a tree and why didn't it get onto the ark?

Scientists don't skimp either and science is not a religion

Re:Hopefully

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Woah! You totally went meta on his ass.

Re:Hopefully

[martin-boundary]

I'm sorry, but atheism isn't a belief. It's a lack of belief. It goes like this: no proof, no belief.

Not trying to troll, but I can't let you propagate misconceptions.

Re:Hopefully

[AmonTheMetalhead]

Scientific religion? What the hell is that?!

Re:Hopefully

[Black Parrot]

and presumably take the fact that they fit so perfectly into the fossil record without a trace of scientific incongruity as evidence that their deity is almighty and powerful enough to fake evidence really well.

An eye for detail is what distinguishes a truly great artist. Adds depth to his creations, so to speak.

Rumor has it that his next one is going to be in 3D.

Re:Hopefully

[FrootLoops]

Thanks for the chuckle, but I would like my question answered.

Re:Hopefully

[Aceticon]

Religion can and often is used as means of control of the (unwashed) masses: it's like a police in the brain and is far more effective than the police on the street.

Probably this is why America's founding father explicitly sought to separate the state ( and politics ) from religion.

Unfortunately, in this day and age when the US Constitution is completely disregarded, religion is once again a tool in the toolbox of politics.

Re:Hopefully

[Truedat]

You are part of a segment of the population that, by not thinking critically, you help perpetuate the myths and all their negative aspects, as well as the social structure that leads to huge inequalities between people.

I firmly side with bryan1945 and call master_p, and those that modded him insightful, on their arrogance. Think about it, he's never met the guy before and claims to know that bryan1945 and his church go about causing great harm in the world. If religion disappeared overnight the world would be no better off because this kind of hateful, wrong headed thinking will simply find a new home and new masters. Sadly it's part of the human condition and not religion - correlation does not imply causation.

Yes atheists of slashdot mod me down, but before you do think for a moment whether you want guys like this fighting your corner. That is exactly the kind of post that will alienate the very people you are trying to convince.

Re:Hopefully

[Reservoir Penguin]

Please stop trolling, no-one is going to write an essay to debunk this childish list. Intelligent design is Creationism both scientifically and legally (as established in Panda textbook case).

Re:Hopefully

[heathen_01]

Sure, as long as you can prove that the dog is a consenting party.

Re:Hopefully

[heathen_01]

Thinking critically

You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means. Care to explain how critical thinking can lead a person to believe is something with no proof?

Re:Hopefully

[heathen_01]

I'm sorry, but atheism isn't a belief. It's a lack of belief. It goes like this: no proof, no belief.

Not trying to troll, but I can't let you propagate misconceptions.

Surely its just: no belief. If you actually do have proof then belief is not required.

Re:Hopefully

[Aceticon]

That makes sense, after all Atheism is being against religion while Agnosticism is having no religion.

Being activelly against an entire social movement does require a certain level of tunnel vision to paint all individuals in that group as sharing a set of bad personal characteristics which really are only shown by a subset of loud individuals in that group.

Frankly attacking a whole group for the actions of a minority of individuals is counter-productive. The silent majority is often disgusted by the actions of those self-proclaimed representantives of the group and would rather distance themselves from them.

Re:Hopefully

[Kaitiff]

Actually, I agree with his statement to a degree. Recently I had a Jehova's Witness bang on my door trying to peddle her wares. When I politely told her that I was Atheist she took that statement w/out a beat and immediately came out with a pamphlet SPECIFICALLY for self-professed atheists. She also had an entire set of pre-arranged arguments regarding atheism and morality. I was a bit taken aback. I think that the religions of the world are taking notice to their shrinking congregations and are going on the attack to stem the loss of money in their coffers. Even 30 or 40 years ago, although you wouldn't immediately be stoned for professing your lack of religion 'we' were most definitely a backwater. Now Reasoning people are far more numerous and far more vocal about their views. 30 years ago I could NOT have told my parents I was atheist; now we have rather heated discussions on the topic, when we aren't smart enough to avoid the subject. :)

Re:Hopefully

[nyctopterus]

I know that people identifying as christian have a huge variety of beliefs, ranging from "it's all metaphor" to "everything in the Bible is literally true", but for the vast majority, christianity involves some sort of belief in the supernatural. Your statement that you are christian translates to most people as "I believe in supernatural things", probably specifically about the divinity of some middle-eastern guy about 2000 years ago, and that it is an important part of your identity.

I have never seen an argument that gets you close to personal-god christianity being a reasonable set of beliefs (even the arguments for the weakest forms of deism are really poor). So, from an atheist perspective, people dropping into conversation that they hold such beliefs is a provocative affirmation of the absurd. Personally, I don't jump at people for saying they are Christian, but I do feel like it would be intellectually dishonest to pretend that I think it makes any sense at all (metaphorical brands aside). If it is used as any part of an argument, then it just sticks out as a huge false premise.

So, I guess my point is that you feel you get derided for simply holding a differing belief, but I think you are making an assumption that atheists will see your beliefs as equivilant in some way. Most atheists don't see it that way, they see religious beliefs as not even having made the first few baby steps toward being a plausible set of ideas, and see little to no chance of that changing. To many atheists, there really isn't an intellectual debate of any substance to be had -- all that is left is derision.

Just to set the tone of this, I don't mean it to be an attack, but an attempt to honestly lay out what I see as the atheist position, and something of an explanation for why they act like they do. (Of course, some atheists are just dicks, no denying that.)

Re:Hopefully

[ultranova]

As a counter argument, I'd ask; do you think it logical for any reasonable individual to become religious purely out of protest to atheÃsts?

No, but it's perfectly logical to expect that people holding position X tend to shift towards more extreme forms of X when confronted by someone who's challenging this position in a hostile manner. X can be a religious position, a political position or a belief that My Little Pony is a good television series. Challenge these positions, and be annoying enough about it ("if you believe this, you're stupid or evil or both" is a classic), and you get fundamentalism, Tea Party movement, and a firm and unshakable belief that My Little Pony was engraved frame by frame in stone tablets at the dawn of time by the very hand of God himself, is being transferred onto cells today by a mysterious order of deathless warrior monks, and once the last episode airs the universe has fulfilled its purpose and will pop like a soap bubble.

So no, people are not going to become religious just to protest atheists, but they will make a bigger deal out of whatever religious feelings they already had.

Re:Hopefully

[Attila Dimedici]

You are going to tell me what I heard now? The conversation I had with her definitely covered dinosaurs. She was not confused about what she was saying, and neither was I. I realise that this might not be the official teaching of the Jehovah's witnesses, but she was a christian, and that was her personal belief.

He was not telling you what you heard. He was telling you that Jehovah's Witnesses are not Christian.

Re:Hopefully

[Attila Dimedici]

Think about only this: without the excuse of God, how many politicians would have to find another way to persuade us to follow them in their quest to serve their buddies' interests.

You mean the way that Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro kept referring to God as a reason for them to persecute millions of those in the countries they controlled? Oh wait, no, none of them did that. They were all professing atheists.

Re:Hopefully

[Anonymous Coward]

tl;dr - grr grr no religionists can possibly have a brain, i am teh clever, therefore you shud be insulted.

'It is time for you to reexamine your position and think critically about the world, including your religion'.

What if he/she has? Why do you presume that all critical thinking will lead to your point of view? What if, after careful consideration, they come to a *different conclusion than you*?

Should that mean they should be derided, then? Cos the way you say it, sounds like you just want to have a go at people who don't agree with you. Which is exactly the thing you accuse religious people of.

Oops.

Re:Hopefully

[digitig]

The world is rapidly going the other way. Back in the 60s and 70s people thought that The Age of Reason had won and we could move into the future with hope. Now reason is under attack from the religions of the world.

Nope. Some people did, but others thought it was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius and a revival of spirituality. Many of those folks rejected science as being a force for evil -- there was a massive anti-science swing in the 1960s. Turn off your nostalgia filter and you'll find that there was no golden age.

Re:Hopefully

[QuasiRob]

Atheism is not a belief.

Re:Hopefully

[digitig]

Actually, I agree with his statement to a degree. Recently I had a Jehova's Witness bang on my door trying to peddle her wares. When I politely told her that I was Atheist she took that statement w/out a beat and immediately came out with a pamphlet SPECIFICALLY for self-professed atheists. She also had an entire set of pre-arranged arguments regarding atheism and morality. I was a bit taken aback. I think that the religions of the world are taking notice to their shrinking congregations and are going on the attack to stem the loss of money in their coffers. Even 30 or 40 years ago, although you wouldn't immediately be stoned for professing your lack of religion 'we' were most definitely a backwater. Now Reasoning people are far more numerous and far more vocal about their views. 30 years ago I could NOT have told my parents I was atheist; now we have rather heated discussions on the topic, when we aren't smart enough to avoid the subject. :)

Despite the propaganda, you'll find reasoning people both outside and inside religion, but they're a minority on both sides of the divide.

Re:Hopefully

[digitig]

As a counter argument, I'd ask; do you think it logical for any reasonable individual to become religious purely out of protest to atheists?

No. Do you think it logical for any reasonable individual to become atheist purely out of protest to the religious? I know quite a few people who say that they have (especially out of protest against Roman Catholicism), but whether they're "reasonable people" is up for debate.

Re:Hopefully

[chichilalescu]

You made me curious. How are you a christian, yet still someone who uses critical thinking?
Concretely, what is the difference between an agnostic who respects the ten commandments and yourself?
I'm not trolling, just asking because you seem to be genuinly open to debate.

Re:Hopefully

[MrMickS]

And again unlike creationism, intelligent design is not fundamentally at odds with evolution. They can coexist. Intelligent design is not really answering the same question as evolution. It goes beyond. It poses a possible answer (perhaps a convenient one, but find me another) to a series of questions which rise in most people's minds when they learn evolution.

Except that it implies an ordered direction to evolution, one that is controlled by some intelligence, to that end it is at odds with the general scientific principle of evolution. The differences between ID and creationism are a fig leaf. Fundementally they provide the same answer to the origin issue. That some super being, for which there is no testable evidence, that ordered things as they are.

The questions you ask are interesting, but I'd counter with a simple reversal of them. For each question you can ask why not. Its ok to not know, which is the nub of all questions of faith and religious belief. In general people believe in a god figure because the alternative, that mankind is simply another animal, that evolved by chance, and there is no greater purpose in life than their lot on earth, isn't something that they can stomach. Their is a need for there to be more to their existance than this mortal coil.

As a non-believer that is happy with this I have a couple of questions:

* If a god is required to bring mankind into being, how or what created this god?
* If its ok for a god to have just existed, why isn't it ok for life on the earth to have evolved as it has by chance?

Eventually you get to a point where you just have to accept that you don't have an answer.

Re:Hopefully

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you could not have proved his point better.

Re:Hopefully

[FrootLoops]

You apparently want people to misinterpret your posts, or at least you don't mind it happening with regularity when you could easily change it (eg. by modifying your signature). That sounds extremely trollish. To each their own, but you got moderated correctly even if the reasons were incorrect.

By the way, I rather like your sense of humor.

Re:Hopefully

[martin-boundary]

Yes, you're right. I actually meant this in the sense of no proof *and* no belief, not as an implication.

Re:Hopefully

[JoeMerchant]

It just seems to be popular to be a moron these days.

I think that has always been true.

Re:Hopefully

[marcello_dl]

Apparently, Gandhi was a peace extremist. Problem, moderates?

Re:Hopefully

[doublebackslash]

Atheism is being against religion while Agnosticism is having no religion.

I'm sorry, but that isn't correct. Atheism is simply asserting that there is no god. Agnosticism is a harder one to define but it is (in VERY brief) the idea that though there could be something beyond the mortal ken the details of it aren't anything more than pure speculation.

There are many shades of Agnosticism but there is only one of Atheism and that is "There is nothing supernatural." There is nothing in that statement that attacks anyone. People just feel attacked by it. I don't claim to understand why.

Re:Hopefully

[couchslug]

Nice try, but since religion is superstition and lies, how does one maintain intellectual integrity and NOT attack lies?

Superstitionists want POWER for their lies, so of course should be attacked by those who do not wish to submit.

Superstition isn't rational. All religion is (j)ihad. Why exactly should I treat the ideas of "flat earthers" with respect when they want to RULE ME based on those ideas?

Re:Hopefully

[gtall]

"as evidence that their deity is almighty and powerful enough to fake evidence really well" I knew it, G-d's been lying to us. I guess He gets to be sneaky whenever He wants.

Re:Hopefully

[pla]

It just seems like(or, at least, online) atheism is a lot louder about it's beliefs or with its objections to things.

I'll take "louder" over "punishable by death", TYVM.

And honestly, this whole vocal-atheist thing? I just haven't seen it. Yes, they have a few talking heads that occasionally get attention in the press; How many dozens of Jesse Jacksons / Fred Phelps / dead Dutch cartoonists / burned African witches, do we hear about for every public appearance by Richard Dawkins?

Atheists in most of the western world finally feel moderately safe to have a voice at all; The zealots still hold the crown for volume.

Re:Hopefully

[couchslug]

There is no reason for humor. All religion is toxic, all religionists backward and vicious.

Religion deserves no respect. It deserves no credence as any sort of reasonable world view. It is simply nonsense devised by the lowest barbaric peasants and propagated through war. It's as nasty as Communism and even less logical.

Re:Hopefully

[couchslug]

Islam and Christianity consign sinners to Hell.

Your books are either literally true and their directives ORDERS you must OBEY or your superstitions are just social clubs.

Tell us which is accurate?

Re:Hopefully

[Ameryll]

What I'd like to know is how any religion that professes to believe in an all knowing and creative deity would deny the mastery apparent in the minds of its own creations.

I mean seriously, why would God create a brilliant analytical brain, only to shun its use?

Maybe the same reason he made a tree we weren't supposed to eat from.

Re:Hopefully

[martinux]

A person can use reason about a great many things whilst ignoring it for a special subset of others.
Religion requires a specific *lack* of reasoning. It requires that you hang up all evidence based logical thinking and very literally take everything on faith.

"My book is the perfect word of god."
"We know exactly how god wants you to live your life."
"Our religion is the only true religion."

These are not factually verifiable statements. To believe that any of the above are true demands one ignore all other similar claims.

Unfortunately we have a significant amount of evidence that suggests that the followers of god are not willing to just live and let live, they're not even willing to agree to disagree. They *know* that they're right and that makes any alternative claim subject to correction.

Re:Hopefully

[couchslug]

Prove your God exists, using scientific method, and I will worship your God.

Until then, your belief is NOT LOGICALLY defensible and merits contempt.

Faith is not proof.

Re:Hopefully

[Ameryll]

I cannot comment on the world, but I can comment on my experiences here. People say they're atheist or agnostic, no problem. Someone says they're Christian, like I have in the past, and I'll get a bunch of replies mocking my belief in "fairy tales" and "how's that intelligent design going for you." And that's all I say- I'm a Christian, don't defend anything, don't push any agenda. I'll await the derision over in the left corner. The point being I get derided just because I say I'm something different from you, but Cthulhu help me if I try to say anything against atheists/agnostics here, which I never have, BTW.

Same problem I have when I say "I'm a vegetarian". People either tease me about being an animal lover or go on the defensive and explain why they eat me. I didn't ask why they eat meat or otherwise try to convince them to change their ways. But if something is a heated topic in any way and it comes up ever so innocently, people have to react to it. I don't really understand why.

Re:Hopefully

[Guppy]

I had a professor at my med school relate an interesting encounter she had with a patient, who was diagnosed with a Branchial Cyst.

They took a biopsy , and my professor explained to the patient what his condition was, that it was an evolutionary remnant of a gill arch. At that point the patient became very indignant, insisting that evolution was nonsense and that God would heal him. He walked out and they were unable to contact him again, which is a shame because the pathologist found pre-cancerous changes in the sample.

Re:Hopefully

[Jawnn]

Hopefully the world will start to grow more accepting toward skeptical beliefs(such as atheism, Agnosticism, etc). It makes me sad how often these beliefs are persecuted :(

Atheism is not skepticism, it's a firm belief or, in extreme cases, a deluded insistence that one can "know" such things. In that, it is indistinguishable from religion. In a field where solid evidence, for any position, is virtually impossible to come by, agnosticism is the only rational view.

Re:Hopefully

[digitig]

A person can use reason about a great many things whilst ignoring it for a special subset of others. Religion requires a specific *lack* of reasoning. It requires that you hang up all evidence based logical thinking and very literally take everything on faith.

"My book is the perfect word of god." "We know exactly how god wants you to live your life." "Our religion is the only true religion."

These are not factually verifiable statements..

And there are lots of religious people who don't believe any of those things, and there are quite a few who apply reason rigorously to their religious beliefs. "Some x are y", or even "Most x are y", is not sufficient to argue that "All x are y".

Re:Hopefully

[eddy]

>People in general don't just suddenly switch from non-religious to religious.

Sure they do. They're born athiests, and take up their parents uninformed beliefs so early that no amount of post-infection reason can turn them non-religious.

Hence the infection spreads...

Re:Hopefully

[JackieBrown]

Why not? The loud attacks against religion inspires loud responses.

It's funny how people don't see this but do see the US policies against muslim fanatics as the reason for the rise in muslim fanatics.

Re:Hopefully

[Jawnn]

Defensiveness: "sheer seething stupidity" ... "current crop of idiots" -- those statements will only convince people to fight you.

To which I would say (to religious zealots and atheists alike), "Bring it. You have nothing of substance with which to defend your position. No..., the absence of proof supports your position no more than does some many-times-translated, printed and bound collection of Bronze Age mythology."

Look, believe what you like, and feel free to indulge that belief in any way you choose.As long as you can admit that it is a belief, and so long as that indulgence does not include forcing your beliefs on others, in any way whatsoever, you will have my support.

Re:Hopefully

[Stormy Dragon]

Is it really going the other way? Or is it just the case that this happened just as much back then and we just never heard of it because, prior to the internet, there was no way an American would have heard of local level arrests in rural India?

There are a number of things many people think are becoming more common when they're actually becoming more rare and we just hear about them more often then we used to.

Re:Hopefully

[brendank310]

Only Sith deal in absolutes...

Re:Hopefully

[dwpro]

This false equivalence is not helpful, with regard to faith. "Trust not thy own understanding" isn't taught to atheists as a dogma, and it is evident

Re:Hopefully

[Jawnn]

The world is rapidly going the other way. Back in the 60s and 70s people thought that The Age of Reason had won and we could move into the future with hope.

Yes, but the disillusionment with the "age of reason" (modernism) is what led to post modernism - The Age of Reason didn't actually lead to everyone automatically becoming reasonable.

TFTFY
The Age of Reason, or more precisely a series of marker events within it, lead to a fundamentally different understanding of our world and our place in it. That shift dealt a major blow to religious authority (both political and spiritual) that is felt to this day. For a host of reasons, many of which, I must confess, utterly confound me, many people (not to mention most "churches") still continue to to insist that their religious beliefs must be shared by everyone around them.

Re:Hopefully

[konaya]

That makes sense, after all Atheism is being against religion while Agnosticism is having no religion.

I think you are confusing atheism with antitheism.

Re:Hopefully

[IICV]

There are many shades of Agnosticism but there is only one of Atheism and that is "There is nothing supernatural."

Actually, atheism is even narrower than that - all it means is that you hold the position that there is no God. Atheists can still believe in fairies, ghosts, goblins, the healing power of chakras or what-have-you. It just so happens that these days atheists tend to be generally skeptical, which means they generally don't believe in the supernatural either.

Re:Hopefully

[currently_awake]

The preponderance of evidence is against. Both protestant and catholic claim they talk with god, yet they follow different rules. Unless your god is insane or evil that can't work.

Re:Hopefully

[mvdwege]

Trollish? Some sarcasm? On Slashdot? This site has always been a place for strongly expressed opinions. I really didn't go even half as far as some others do and have been doing for years.

All this proves is my contention that a lot of Slashdot posters have a really thin skin when it comes to religious matters. Strangely enough it is the same people who claim the right to be as offensive as possible to religious people who scream the loudest if they get a dose of their own medicine; see some of the other reactions in this thread.

And what the bloody hell has my sig to do with this? It is an expression of my exasperation with people who contribute nothing but a single link under an 'Obligatory' header. And yes, I do mod these posts as -1, Redundant.

Re:Hopefully

[Raenex]

There are many shades of Agnosticism but there is only one of Atheism and that is "There is nothing supernatural."

No, there are also many shades of atheism. Even atheists like Dawkins or Hitchens when he was alive will tell you that they don't believe in "God" based on the evidence, but admit the possibility of a supernatural being. For example:

"There was surprise when Prof Dawkins acknowledged that he was less than 100 per cent certain of his conviction that there is no creator.

The philosopher Sir Anthony Kenny, who chaired the discussion, interjected: "Why don't you call yourself an agnostic?" Prof Dawkins answered that he did.

An incredulous Sir Anthony replied: "You are described as the world's most famous atheist."

Prof Dawkins said that he was "6.9 out of seven" sure of his beliefs.

"I think the probability of a supernatural creator existing is very very low," he added. "

The problem with the label of agnosticism is it carries the strong connotation that we can't have reasoned beliefs about religious claims, so calling yourself an agnostic sends the wrong message. I call myself an atheist because it is the closest term that gets the message across, but there's always room for doubt. How can we know anything with 100% certainty?

Re:Hopefully

[Hatta]

there are quite a few who apply reason rigorously to their religious beliefs.

Who exactly? And what did they find? If they actually applied rigorous reasoning, they should have a convincing argument for their conclusions. I would be most interested in this.

However, every time I check, and it's been often for many years, "rigorous reasoning" is anything but. Consider Pascal's Wager, for centuries it was considered logically sound, but it's really just a false dichotomy. Are you sure these reasonable religious people are not just dressing up their faith in the trappings of reason to make it sound better?

Re:Hopefully

[Shoten]

I think they already have been...but part of the problem is that a lot of these beliefs seem to be getting less accepting of others. It doesn't do a lot for the argument that religion fosters intolerance when an athiest gets up in someone's face for believing in God. Me, I'm a huge fan of freedom of religion...I found my own faith that works for me but I don't think any one faith has it quite right. One of the most universal notions about a higher power or powers is that they are beyond our ability to entirely comprehend. So why would anyone believe that a faith system that is comprehensible by us would be an exact fit?

Re:Hopefully

[InsertCleverUsername]

I don't think reason is under attack by religion specifically. It just seems to be popular to be a moron these days. The number of well-established scientific theories you disagree with is a matter for competitive sport.

I think the paradoxical regression from trust in science and knowledge to supernatural explanations of the world is mostly due to the mismatch between the pace of human knowledge and much slower growth of human intellectual capacity. And the phenomenon really isn't helped by the glut of mindless entertainment. When you have fun, easy to understand crap like reality television permeating your culture, why hurt your brain trying to untangle the complexities of the modern sciences?

Re:Hopefully

[Hatta]

Poe's Law. It's not our fault we can't distinguish parody from actual religious belief. No matter how wacky you try to be, someone actually believes that.

Re:Hopefully

[digitig]

This false equivalence is not helpful, with regard to faith. "Trust not thy own understanding" isn't taught to atheists as a dogma, and it is evident

It isn't taught to most religious people as a dogma, either. Although I think everybody would be wise to remember that there might be limits to their understanding and that they might be mistaken. "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."

Re:Hopefully

[Hatta]

I'm a Christian, don't defend anything, don't push any agenda.

If you're not spreading the word of Christ, you're not a very good Christian.

Re:Hopefully

[Taibhsear]

How this comment looks to critical thinkers:

you accuse him of not being wet. How do you know that he doesn't have a PhD in staying dry

Re:Hopefully

[digitig]

Despite the propaganda, you'll find reasoning people both outside and inside religion

Why would a reasoning person believe in the unverifiable? The only reasonable reaction when presented with a nonfalsifiable hypothesis is "could be, but I don't really know".

Religion is at best wishful thinking. And wishful thinking isn't reason.

Is there an objective reality? The existence of one is non-falsifiable. Is logic valid? The validity of logic is non-falsifiable. If you really believe that the only reasonable reaction when presented with a nonfalsifiable hypothesis is "could be, but I don't really know" then I assume you are an epistemiological solipsist, which is an intellectually viable position but one that challenges science just as much as religion.

Re:Hopefully

[hackula]

I would say that his phd is certainly a waste of societies resources, if it is not even being used in any way. A theologian who holds a position without defending it is clearly not thinking critically. Also, thinking hard is not the same as thinking smart. You could spend your entire life studying your beliefs without ever seriously challenging them (aka "faith").

Re:Hopefully

[digitig]

I did reviews of a couple of books on both sides of the Dawkins' "God Delusion" debate, and read a whole lot more. I amused myself by seeing how soon each one blamed the other side for the Holocaust. Credit to Dawkins: he was one of the very few who didn't say that the other side was responsible for the Holocaust (he just implied it).

Re:Hopefully

[LoyalOpposition]

I can't even conceive the idea to put belief (let alone faith) in something that's unprovable.

I suspect that you actually do put belief in something that's unprovable, but that you simply don't realize that you are doing so. For example, do you believe that the scientific method is a good way to learn about the universe? If so, then what proof do you have that such might be the case? Many people would answer that it can be proved using the scientific method, but those same people scoff when shown a claim by the bible that the bible is reliable, and call it circular reasoning. Ultimately, you're left with an infinite regress of reasons supporting reasons, which to my mind is more difficult to put faith in than the existence of god.

On the other hand, suppose you're skeptical about the scientific method. Ask yourself whether skepticism is the correct way to approach knowledge of the universe. Shouldn't one be skeptical of such a belief? One must either accept and operate on the assumption that skepticism is the appropriate opinion to hold, or that it's not. One must accept one of those beliefs on faith, as it were.

Stephen F. Roberts: "...I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

Mr. Roberts' claim proves too much. Let me show you why using analogy with mathematics, as I'm particularly fond of mathematics. Let's suppose I believe that there exists precisely one even prime, and analogously that precisely one god exists. Let's suppose furthermore that Mr. Roberts believes that no even primes exist, and analogously that no god exists. I dismiss candidates 3, 17, and 61 because they aren't even. I dismiss candidates 10, 34, and 100002 because they aren't prime. I dismiss candidates h, e, and pi because they aren't integers. I dismiss candidates -3, 0, and 1 because they aren't greater than one. I now understand why I dismiss all the other possible even primes (other than 2). Mr. Roberts' would now claim that I understand why he dismisses 2. In fact, I don't. Number 2 is even; it's a prime; it's an integer; it's greater than one. Arguments that claim that something doesn't have a property have no bearing on other predicates. Specifically, if I claim that the flying spaghetti monster doesn't exist because it was imagined by Bobby Henderson in 2005 to protest a decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to teach Intelligent Design, then that has no bearing on the god that we supposed I believed in at the beginning of this paragraph, provided that we didn't suppose I believed in the flying spaghetti monster.

~Loyal
 

Re:Hopefully

[hackula]

Good try, but I think we all know which side would win a true tally of evil bastards. Regardless, these arguments are useless from either side.

Re:Hopefully

[Rude Turnip]

I know you're joking, but technically scotch ages in the barrel, not the bottle. Assuming you have access to the same recipe, water conditions, ingredients, etc., you'll get the same basic result.

Re:Hopefully

[Attila Dimedici]

Good try, but I think we all know which side would win a true tally of evil bastards.

You are correct, but try convincing the atheists on slashdot of that.

Re:Hopefully

[lee1]

You're supposed to tell them that you're Jewish.

Re:Hopefully

[gparent]

People in general could stand to be more like Spock when it comes to debates.

They threw me out of the debate club after I started strangling people and defending my actions by claiming I was emotionally compromised.

Re:Hopefully

[CowTipperGore]

Who is the moron here? I'd put my money on the one totally oblivious to sarcasm. Really, all you and the ones who modded me Troll accomplished is prove my point...

Maybe, just maybe, your post wasn't funny and your attempt at sarcasm was just piss poor.

Re:Hopefully

[Barsteward]

" wrong headed thinking will simply find a new home and new masters. "

this may be true but it won't get carte blanche acceptance like religion does. You can do almost anything in the name of religion and people will accept it (except the critical thinking and rational people). You can't criticise religion, in some parts of the world you can be killed for blasphemy.

Re:Hopefully

[microbox]

Unfortunately, in this day and age when the US Constitution is completely disregarded, religion is once again a tool in the toolbox of politics.

You got it wrong. Jesus gave us the constitution, and therefore it is sacred. And christian.

Re:Hopefully

[microbox]

Yes, but the disillusionment with the "age of reason" (modernism) is what led to post modernism - The Age of Reason didn't actually lead to any more reason.

Postmodernism was created by social revolutionaries who are attached to anthropocentric secular humanist ideals, and object to the notion that the sciences are the only part of the academy that actually produces new knowledge. Postmodernists pretend not to know anything, but really, they know best, are morally superior, and too full to understand any of the problems of woolly thinking that they push. Given the strong biological basis of personality, it is likely that postmodernists are just a particular deem of humanity, expressing there innate characteristics in a modern age.

Re:Hopefully

[scamper_22]

Perhaps.

I'm Muslim so I have a bit of a different perspective. I've actually seen parts of my family and community go 'backwards'.

In my parents generation, almost no one wore the niqaab. Today, it starts to be common place. Not the majority, but enough. And its not the case of the parents forcing it on them, but their own choice... often defying their parents.

In some areas, the fundamentalists are winning. Very few Muslims will outwardly proclaim their atheism as the cultural consequences are often too great. They will face huge problems with their friends and family and community.

Most, like me, simply choose to be non-practicing.

So while athiesm or religious moderation might be there for christianity. It's not the case for Islam... which just happens to have a whack load of people.

Re:Hopefully

[happy_place]

The world is growing more tolerant of skepticism, else we would have a lot more than two stories from remote locations like Mumbai and Kuwait. The problem is, that when everyone's skeptical, exactly how does one show tolerance? We jab at each other in a continual battle, not for freedom from persecution, but for the sake of advocacy. If we can't prove our belief system is the best, one has founded their beliefs in the sinking sand of doubts and the possibility that there exists a better belief system out there. What we all need is tolerance. We need the ability to change our beliefs, not hold to them so rigorously that we have no ability to think them through. Skepticism can be a tool for enlightenment, or it can be a tool of self-embitterment. A component of skepticism is a sort of intellectual intolerance and dissatisfaction. Atheism's problem isn't its intellectual rigor, but the danger that its motivating skepticism becomes an emotional response to all forms of creativity and imagination expressed in religious context. That intolerance is the same beast that inspires religious zealots to attrocities against humanity.

The truth is that no one ever proved their religion was true by tearing down the beliefs of someone else. If one's atheism (or any other faith) is based upon tearing down belief systems, then you're worshiping a void.

My own religious convictions are based upon intellectual and emotional experiences. By faith and evidences collected and cherished. I love that people have the freedom to believe and worship and not worship as they see fit. I hope that that freedom is fostered, because all belief is a process. One isn't inborn with a perfect knowledge of anything, and just like the hard sciences, a religious education doesn't come just because one is born into a faith. We must be free to choose our own path--I believe it's a fundamental purpose of our existence.

Re:Hopefully

[microbox]

there was a massive anti-science swing in the 1960s. Turn off your nostalgia filter and you'll find that there was no golden age.

And now those people populate the humanities departments of universities across the western world, and they still preach the same bull.

Re:Hopefully

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

Mathematical proofs are certain

The proofs themselves may be certain, but you can't ever be sure of it within your own mind. Maybe the universe was created with all of your memories intact halfway through your understanding of the proof.

Re:Hopefully

[microbox]

I mean seriously, why would God create a brilliant analytical brain, only to shun its use?

So we can prove just how much faith and goodness we have.

Re:Hopefully

[sorak]

Who is the moron here? I'd put my money on the one totally oblivious to sarcasm.

Really, all you and the ones who modded me Troll accomplished is prove my point: the current crop of atheists, especially the ones haunting Slashdot, are as humourlessly fanatic as religious fundamentalists.

Mart

You must be a blast at parties. Tell me when you're headlining at the Apollo. Just don't tell the audience "you people aren't smart enough to recognize a good joke"...They may not take it well.

Re:Hopefully

[microbox]

Well, perhaps we should come into your church and tell you how to teach the bible. I mean, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Re:Hopefully

[microbox]

This is a dead argument. Religion is a manifestation of a group delusion,and can be used for power and control. But it is not the only manifestation of such a group delusion.

Re:Hopefully

[AmonTheMetalhead]

I can't even conceive the idea to put belief (let alone faith) in something that's unprovable.

I suspect that you actually do put belief in something that's unprovable, but that you simply don't realize that you are doing so. For example, do you believe that the scientific method is a good way to learn about the universe? If so, then what proof do you have that such might be the case?

No, I don't believe that. I accept that the scientific method is the best method we know so far. I don't put a belief or faith in a method. You are comparing a method of work with religion which, to be honest, is above silly.

Many people would answer that it can be proved using the scientific method,

The scientific method is based around the concept of falsification.

but those same people scoff when shown a claim by the bible that the bible is reliable, and call it circular reasoning.

The bible isn't a methodology. The bible is a literal (or philosophical) text. Two completely different entities. The bible uses it's own authority to validate itself as fact (or philosophy) while the scientific method is just that. A method.

Ultimately, you're left with an infinite regress of reasons supporting reasons, which to my mind is more difficult to put faith in than the existence of god.

I don't have any faith. The questions "where do we come from", "why do we exist" and various others are fun topics to discuss, but they do not influence my world view. I don't need faith in a god (or in science) in order to consolidate reality with my own thoughts. For instance, I accept the concept of evolution as being the correct theory to explain how we as a species came to be, however, if tomorrow it turns out to be completely wrong and that there's a completely different mechanism at work, that will not alter my world view. (It would however, be a very fascinating discovery)

On the other hand, suppose you're skeptical about the scientific method.

The method is simple. If you do not grasp it then you have a serious intellectual deficiency. I can explain the method in 3 lines:
Make observation: Apple falls from tree
Make a hypotheses: something attracts the apple and causes it to fall
Perform experiments to confirm the hypothesis.

You can be skeptical of any given theory, but nothing is stopping you from validating it yourself. Even so, the correctness of a theory does not enter my world view, a theory (in science) is a tool, not a philosophy.

Ask yourself whether skepticism is the correct way to approach knowledge of the universe.

I do not believe anything at face value. When I read an article that makes a certain claim, I might accept that claim as usefull knowledge, but it doesn't alter my world view.

Shouldn't one be skeptical of such a belief?

One should think for himself.

One must either accept and operate on the assumption that skepticism is the appropriate opinion to hold, or that it's not. One must accept one of those beliefs on faith, as it were.

No. One must only accept one of these on faith. The other one, science, is a combination of a methodology and a set of observations and theories about those observations. You possess a mind of your own to think about and validate said methodology and theories.

Stephen F. Roberts: "...I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

Mr. Roberts' claim proves too much. Let me show you why using analogy with mathematics, as I'm particularly fond of mathematics. Let's suppose I believe that there exists precisely one even prime, and

Re:Hopefully

[fliptout]

The voice in your head told you it would be funny, eh?

Re:Hopefully

[Hatta]

Philosophically, solipsism is not falsifiable yes. But practically it's useless. Reason and the scientific method are verified as much as anything can be by the technology it produces. We can do things now that we couldn't before because we used reason. You can't say the same about faith.

Re:Hopefully

[Rosy At Random]

Converting because someone you like prays is like believing in a scientific theory because the professor has a nice bow tie. People swayed by such an irrelevance are of no loss or gain to either side,

Re:Hopefully

[dwpro]

I truly do appreciate your skepticism about the limits of understanding, that is well advised. However:

It isn't taught to most religious people as a dogma, either.

You must know you're wrong about this. Faith is placed above reason in the dogma of all monotheistic religions, and there is no better proof than each claims their their holy book is the word of God. And how does each know that it's the word of God? Faith, Trust. I would love to see someone reason a monotheistic religious world view in the absence of its holy book.

I've discovered a fundamental mechanism through which eternal salvation is attained through means of a telepathic acknowledgement of a truth. I've been able to reproduce this via a petri disc soul conversion of all known possible choices and indeed, there is only one acknowledgement available for salvation.

Re:Hopefully

[HeckRuler]

Poe's law strikes again. It's an interesting dilemma when you can't tell the trolls trolling trolls from the true believers. Also, Poe is a rather funny guy.

Re:Hopefully

[StormReaver]

He says that he's a Christian and you accuse him of not thinking critically. How do you know that he doesn't have a PhD in theology?

The latter would prove the former.

Re:Hopefully

[geekoid]

"And there are lots of religious people who don't believe any of those things,"
then they aren't religious, they are people going though motions out of fear.

Re:Hopefully

[Quirkz]

Curious analogy, but there's a big difference between the cases. All you have to do is demonstrate 2 as an even prime, and everyone can see it. They can also see why it has properties that are not the same as other even numbers.

On the other hand, God as imagined by the Judeo-Christian tradition basically has identical properties to any other god or gods described by other faiths, other than some personality and the written and oral traditions attached to it. That's because, beyond some internal feeling and that tradition, there are no properties at all to be demonstrated.

There are vast, demonstrable differences between the number 2 and numbers like 10, 34, and 100002. There's really no difference at all between Jehovah and Zeus, Baal, Osiris, and "the spirit of that old oak tree." I can tell the difference between 2 and 34 based on their properties. I have no way of telling the difference between Jehovah and Zeus because both have no tangible, observable properties to compare.

Re:Hopefully

[HeckRuler]

Ah, the no-true-scotman argument comes out again. Go get some learnings, you.

Re:Hopefully

[geekoid]

That's because you have to have a delusion of some sort yo do that much evil. However Hitler was a psychopath, so he isn't worth associating with either side of the argument.

Also, when religious people bring that up, and they will, you need to point out the,in fact, Hitler was brought up religious.
Which directly counters the argument that 'Atheists have no morals' position religious people are trying to use when they bring up Hitler.

Re:Hopefully

[Cowmonaut]

The current crop of atheists is indeed loud, and particularly obnoxious. Maybe they're the ones to blame for the rise in religionism? I mean, when I see the sheer seething stupidity right here on Slashdot whenever religion comes up, I'm almost tempted to join a monastery. In the Seventies we had 'Humanists'; they surely were a whole lot nicer than the current crop of idiots. Mart

How is this sarcasm? It doesn't even seem sarcastic. It just seems like an attempt to troll to be honest. Or to insult a segment of the population on Slashdot.

You need to work on your humor mate. Your post wasn't even remotely amusing.

Does make me wonder though, what causes fundamentalism in people. Doesn't matter if its religion or fanboyism, its damned annoying.

Re:Hopefully

[geekoid]

Just because someone is atheist they have to lie? That's just another step toward giving religious people even more control.

Re:Hopefully

[Quirkz]

Humor often isn't very rational, either. Should we also attack it? I have to say I personally treasure some irrationalities. There are plenty of reasons to push back against religion, but I'm not sure irrationality alone is a good deciding factor.

Re:Hopefully

[geekoid]

They have become a lot louder in the last 40 years. a lot louder. It's gone from a general murmer to yelling.

Re:Hopefully

[jvkjvk]

I totally agree.

Most of the so called critical thinkers retreat into facetious analogies and straw men built from their own fears.

Congratulations on continuing the trend...

Re:Hopefully

[mr.mctibbs]

What is insightful about this? You haven't presented any critical examination, much less a defense, of the behaviour the GP is subjected to by you and whoever else thinks it's fine to deride a man for his beliefs. You're no better than Pat Robertson.

-From an atheist who believes in respecting other people, because not having religion doesn't mean you can't have some goddamn manners.

Re:Hopefully

[jahudabudy]

Of course you can say faith is useful and even verifiable, given certain assumptions. To the faithful, faith is very useful - it provides comfort and direction. It can provide health benefits, such as reduced stress. It provides a built-in community of support. It provides a motivation for avoiding some unhealthy behaviors, such as drunkenness and promiscuity.

And the faithful experience phenomena that they interpret as verifying their faith. It isn't scientific evidence, but really, no one requires scientifically rigorous evidence for everything they accept in their life. Every human being on the planet has some beliefs, with varying degrees of reasonableness, that they accept without scientific evidence. Arguing that religious people must be idiots or mentally deficient, because they apply a common human practice in an area you don't, displays the exact sort of non-thinking judgment you seem to be decrying.

Re:Hopefully

[geekoid]

Since many people have gone from religious to atheism, it's not likely in the genes.

However, the ability to leave faith in something you don't understand, and to put it into a way of thinking about it on your terms is a strong evolutionary trait.

I differentiated because region seems to be people abusing or tricking the natural ability to set aside things to carry on with the day to day activities.

Re:Hopefully

[geekoid]

" If so, then what proof do you have that such might be the case?"
The scientific methods primary strength is that if would show if itself wasn't valid.
Ity has been tested and succeed millions of times.

The bible has been tested..and failed.

One is testable, they other is just a testament.i.e. Proof vs. anecdote.

Re:Hopefully

[digitig]

Philosophically, solipsism is not falsifiable yes. But practically it's useless. Reason and the scientific method are verified as much as anything can be by the technology it produces. We can do things now that we couldn't before because we used reason. You can't say the same about faith.

When did we (humanity as a whole) ever not use reason? As I said at the start of this sub-thread, the religious and the atheists alike use reason -- although nowhere near enough of either of them. And most religious people (not all, true) accept the scientific method too; they just don't accept the scientism dogma that it's all there is.

Re:Hopefully

[digitig]

I truly do appreciate your skepticism about the limits of understanding, that is well advised. However:

It isn't taught to most religious people as a dogma, either.

You must know you're wrong about this. Faith is placed above reason in the dogma of all monotheistic religions, and there is no better proof than each claims their their holy book is the word of God. And how does each know that it's the word of God? Faith, Trust. I would love to see someone reason a monotheistic religious world view in the absence of its holy book.

Many adherents of monotheistic religions -- I assume you mean specifically the Abrahamic religions -- don't accept their "holy book" as dogma. Amongst Christians, for example, it's only the evangelicals who do. They're a particularly powerful and vocal group in the USA, so if you don't know much about religion in general or Christianity in particular then it's easy to think that they're what religion is, but that's a mistake. And you might notice that I said "most religious people", not "most monotheistic religious people", so you are shifting the goalposts.

Re:Hopefully

[SigmundFloyd]

Mr. Roberts' claim proves too much. Let me show you why using analogy with mathematics, as I'm particularly fond of mathematics. Let's suppose I believe that there exists precisely one even prime, and analogously that precisely one god exists. Let's suppose furthermore that Mr. Roberts believes that no even primes exist, and analogously that no god exists.

So you to took a provable mathematical fact and compared "believing" in it to believing in a god. And you probably think you're smart, too!

Re:Hopefully

[digitig]

What's your definition of "religious" then? There are plenty of people who believe in and worship an interventionist God, for example, who would consider the three statements you ascribe to all religion to be utter nonsense.

Re:Hopefully

[Whorhay]

Right on!

If you believe in a being that could design and create every living thing around you, the step to s/he being powerful and smart enough to fake all the evidence for dinosaurs and such is trivial.

Re:Hopefully

[j-beda]

All of your questions are interesting, but even with my very limited understanding of present-day biological developmental knowledge, none of them poses particularly large difficulties in coming up with an "explanation" based on shared ancestry and evolutionary change. Thus there is currently no need to impose some "intelligent designer" to answer these questions, and doing so is intellectually equivalent to saying "a wizard did it". It leads to no further understanding.

Here are some "story book" ideas for your questions. The current understanding of these particular issues is likely quite different, but in no case requires a "designer" to have a reasonable explanation.

Bilateral symmetry is the result of shared ancestry from some earlier creature with bilateral symmetry, and changes to that symmetry have not had enough physical advantage to be very successful.

The costs to support the ability to regenerate limbs are greater than the benefit it would provide. For example, it might be that the biological systems necessary to support regeneration would result in taking 5% longer to reach child-bearing age or something like that. Non-regenerators on average would grow and reproduce quicker and thus out-compete the regenerators. For longer lived animals this might not be such a big deal, and being more able to recover from injury might be more advantageous.

Hate and vengeance could help to limit the success of "freeloaders" in a group. Animals that live in social groups have a danger of being exploited by individuals in that group who behave too selfishly - a mechanism to prevent/punish such individuals can lead to better overall success. The animal groups that become dominated by freeloaders are not as successful as those that are dominated by freeloaders.

Animals that are specialized to operate only at certain portions of the day can be better suited to exploit that time of day with specialized night or day vision or movement for example. Sleeping during non-active phases uses less energy than being awake, and thus creatures that sleep need less food than those that do not.

The cost of multiple teeth formation for primates is greater than the benefit. If most of the animals who survive to child bearing age only need two sets of teeth, there is little pressure for more sets.

We don't know actually know that one and only one species of creature on earth has developed sentience. Intelligent crabs or dinosaurs could have been around for quite some time before getting wiped out by whatever. Humanity took a long time to go from "banging rocks" to "building rockets", and it is not obvious that intelligence requires "advancement" in this type of direction. We might never find out about the race of farmer dinosaurs who sang epic poems to each other for millions of years before being wiped out in a famine, because they never went beyond hand tilling of their fields and had a religion that prevented them from leaving their holy valley.

People (and many animals) have a sense of beauty and symmetry that is used to judge potential mates. This mate-judging system also gets used to judge non-food-items like flowers. It also probably provides a larger barrier to non-bilateral-symmetry (as mentioned above) arising - it is hard to develop a third lung to pass on to your kids when you look ugly if one crops up.

The sense of smell helps to decide what is good to eat from what is poisonous. It is not a perfect system, like almost all of our bodies, only just good enough to do the job without being too expensive in terms of resources to support it. Some things smell good that are not good to eat and probably some things smell bad that are good to eat, but enough bad things smell bad, and good things smell good that the sense of smell gives an advantage to those that have it over those that do not.

I would also question your list of "uniformly beautiful" things - are you sure that these are genetic rather than cultural outcomes? I seem to recall reading that up until relativity recently (like withing the past few hundred years), seascapes and rocky shores were viewed as ugly/bad/evil . It is certainly true that cultures are subjected to evolutionary pressures, generally the ID/evolution "controversy" does not delve into that area.

Re:Hopefully

[mapkinase]

You are right on the money. It's not the disbelief I can't stand in atheism, it's utter lack of proclaimed "reason" (like a rally in DC).

If you are an atheist, there is not much you can say about it without looking stupid. While belief in supernatural is structured in organized religion, how can you structure disbelief?

They replace it with emphasis on science and reason. As a practicing Muslim and Ph.D. in Physics, I am not against that at all. Just be honest in application of scientific method and do not claim things that cannot be proven or disproven. The latter makes you just another religious person.

Re:Hopefully

[jahudabudy]

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

The classic rebuttal is that, basically, you misunderstand omnipotence. "All powerful" does not mean "Capable of doing anything", it means "Capable of doing anything which is possible". As in "possesses all powers that exist". So, even God is constrained, for instance he can not make a married bachelor, that is logically impossible. Given that context, the conflict between evil and free will constrains God; to allow free will requires the possibility of evil acts. Apparently he went for free will.

Re:Hopefully

[jahudabudy]

No proof? You have no idea what experience he may have had in life that led him to his faith. If you then want to insist on scientific proof, let me ask you - does your wife love you? The last person to speak to you, what did they say? If you answered either of these question other than "I don't know", then you believe something based on nothing more than your anecdotal experience. Why do you insist on a level of rationality in his critical thinking that you don't require of your own?

Re:Hopefully

[Attila Dimedici]

Two points, the first one is that all I was doing was pointing out what the original poster actually said, not making a statement about whether or not Jehovah's Witnesses are or are not Christians.
The second point is that the majority of groups which consider themselves Christian have agreed that there are certain characteristic beliefs that define whether or not a particular group is Christian or not. The Jehovah's Witnesses do not meet those criteria.

Re:Hopefully

[mdielmann]

Islam and Christianity consign sinners to Hell.

If I condemn you to forever ride a unicorn, does that mean it will happen? I may believe that you are going to hell. That doesn't mean that hell exists, or that you're going there if it does (since my beliefs don't give me the authority to make that decision). So why would you care what I believe, so long as I don't try to send you to hell sooner (by killing you) or otherwise enforce my beliefs on you?

Your books are either literally true and their directives ORDERS you must OBEY or your superstitions are just social clubs.

Likewise, why would I care what you insist my beliefs should be, since they're mine?

Re:Hopefully

[j-beda]

This is unrelated to your post, but you make me wonder, how does your belief impact others outside of your religion? For instance, I'm gay and have an agenda because of it: talk about it sometimes, perhaps just in passing, with the goal of getting people used to the idea so we can be more accepted. Do you have any equivalent behavior?

The "moderate" christian is in a bit of a bind. They believe that they have knowledge of a very important bunch of information - one that if understood by others would save their lives, prevent pain and suffering, and generally bring about all sorts of positive things. What is their moral duty?

If you knew that eating a four leaf clover while standing on one foot and facing North would prevent and cure both cancer and being bald - how would that effect our behaviour? What if you also knew that not-sharing that knowledge would result in yourself going bald and getting cancer?

Anyhow, it ain't easy for non-pushy christians - dammed if they do, dammed if they don't.

Re:Hopefully

[Quirkz]

In a field where solid evidence, for any position, is virtually impossible to come by, agnosticism is the only rational view.

Sure. But once I get to this point, I also conclude that, given the unknowable, I find it prudent to live my life in accordance with the assumption that the unknowable simply isn't there. It may be entirely a misunderstanding on my part, but I find agnosticism tends to be more accommodating than I'd like. Maybe it's just the particular agnostics I've met. Don't get me wrong: I'm happy to let people do their own thing, but I do try to keep up a buffer where I'm not willing to go along with someone else's story they've pulled from the unknowable. So to make it more clear to the outside world I'm not going to play their games, I self-identify as an atheist because it better gets the point across. I'm not saying I *know* there's no higher power, but I'm trying to state clearly I'm going to *act like* there's no higher power.

All of this could just be me misusing the terms because I have the impression the general masses don't properly understand them. But considering the frequent arguments here about what atheism and agnosticism are and aren't, I'd say that impression is well founded.

Re:Hopefully

[Hatta]

the scientism dogma that it's all there is.

That's not the claim at all. The claim is that no one can know whatever else there is. The obvious corollary is that anyone who claims to know something about whatever else there is is at best misguided and using methods that are known to be faulty, and at worst is running a scam.

How can a religious person claim to have special knowledge of the supernatural, through means that we know are faulty (e.g. revelation), and still be considered a "reasonable" person?

Re:Hopefully

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong again, Atheism is simply a lack of theist belief. Basically, if you have no belief in a god or gods, you are an atheist. Agnosticism is the position that the truth-value of a statement about the existence of a god or gods is inherently unknowable.

Re:Hopefully

[Hatta]

It provides a motivation for avoiding some unhealthy behaviors, such as drunkenness and promiscuity.

It also provides cover for exercising some of humanities most unhealthy behaviors. Wars, sexual abuse, witch hunts, bigotry of all types.

Every human being on the planet has some beliefs, with varying degrees of reasonableness, that they accept without scientific evidence.

It is the duty of reasonable men to take every step to ensure that their belief system is built on as few and as accurate axioms as possible.

Re:Hopefully

[spire3661]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Big_Bang

Re:Hopefully

[spire3661]

Even scientific belief is faith. I dont go out and measure the sun myself, i dont know for sure that its nuclear powered. I have faith that science is telling the truth.

Re:Hopefully

[LoyalOpposition]

No, I don't believe that.

Perhaps I've explained myself poorly. Let me try again. You've made the claim, "No, I don't believe that," which presumably means that you don't believe that the scientific method is a good way to learn about the universe. I have a little trouble reconciling that with the later claim you made that you accept that the scientific method is the best way we know so far, but I suppose it's possible that the scientific is both the best way we know so far and not a good way. The reason I say that your claim amounts to a claim that the scientific method is not a good way to learn about the universe is because I said (verbatim,) "do you believe that the scientific method is a good way to learn about the universe?" to which you replied (also verbatim,) "No, I don't believe that." However, I don't want to get bogged down in those details too much, because I have these other details that I want to get bogged down in.

Let's suppose you have a belief, which I'll call A. I don't mean that in the sense of taking A on faith, but rather in the sense that you accept A as being true. Statement A could be "the scientific method is the best method we know of so far" or it could be "no, I don't believe that," or it could be "the method is simple," or it could be "there is no logical, reasonable or provable argument why your faith would be correct and others wrong," or it could be something else entirely. There are only two requirements on A; it is a statement and you accept it as being true. Given that you accept A, there are only two possibilities--either there is a reason for believing A, or there isn't. Let's consider the latter first. If there isn't a reason for believing A then you believe in something that's unprovable (which is something that you've claimed is untrue.) Now let's consider the former. Here, again there are only two possibilities. Either the reason for believing A is A, itself, or it's something else. If the reason for believing A is A itself, then you accept circular reasoning as being valid, and you cannot reject the bible's claim to be accurate--or rather you cannot reject it on the basis of circular reasoning being invalid. If you reject it then it must be on some other basis. If the reason for believing A is something else, then let's give it a name in order to make it easier to reason about. I'll call it A-1. This is where the infinite recursion comes in, because I ask what reason you have for accepting A-1? It must either be unsupportable, or in the A through A-k list, or it must be a new reason which I'll call A-2. The reason that always creating a new reason is a problem is that all finite reasons can be expressed with a finite number of characters, which would mean that you believe at least one thing that cannot be expressed. Now let's turn to the final possibility, that A doesn't exist. That would mean that you don't believe anything. The problem with that is that you've made a large number of statements, and you don't believe any of them. So, to summarize, the following are the only possibilities:
1) You believe in something that's unprovable.
2) You believe circular reasoning is valid.
3) You believe at least one statement that is inexpressible because it's infinitely long.
4) You state things are true when you actually don't believe they are.
Frankly, I believe 1), and I think Gödel does, too, which I believe you can find more about if you study one or the other of his incompleteness theorems.

You are comparing a method of work with religion which, to be honest, is above silly.

Wait 'til I get started.

For instance, I accept the concept of evolution as being the correct theory to explain how we as a species came to be, however, if tomorrow it turns out to be completely wrong and that there's a completely different mechanism at work, that will not alter my world view.

Did you write what you meant to write? I ask because it appears that you are saying that you would continue to bel

Re:Hopefully

[nyctopterus]

I never said that christianity was limited to belief in supernatural things (why do you think I did?), it's just that is the part atheists object to. 'Faith' is an odd term, which I believe is actually a complex of emotions, involving both hope and acceptance of things as they are--contradictory in a way, like many of the more powerful emotions. I do not think you need to believe a bunch of hocus-pocus to experience something like that.

Re:Hopefully

[HeckRuler]

Well, ok. But you're not doing so well on either of those two points. The AC said two lines:

I think you misunderstood. To not believe in evolution does not mean you don't believe in dinosaurs.

I have NEVER heard a Christian claim that dinos never existed. Nice straw man.

Neither of which can be construed to mean that Jehova's Witnesses aren't Christian. You just kinda decided to point that out on your own.

Secondly, take a look at Restorationism. It was a period where Christianity splintered, like many times before, and spawned several denominations that have different views. It's extremely like the protestant thing with those crazy Lutherans that don't want the rich to buy off their sins. If you don't want to think of them as Christians, fine, but many of them consider themselves Christians. As for those "certain characteristic beliefs", yeah, they had this issue before when everyone was jumping on the Christian bandwagon. They came up with the Nicene Creed. The updated version 50 years later clearly cuts out all other denominations other than Catholic.

Bloody HELL why do I know all this?

Re:Hopefully

[Raenex]

go on the defensive and explain why they eat me.

Is, "You are very tasty," one of the reasons? ;)

Re:Hopefully

[digitig]

the scientism dogma that it's all there is.

That's not the claim at all. The claim is that no one can know whatever else there is.

It is certainly the claim of some.

The obvious corollary is that anyone who claims to know something about whatever else there is is at best misguided and using methods that are known to be faulty, and at worst is running a scam.

Well, that's logic and mathematics out of the window, then, because they're not part of science (they're things that science depends on).

How can a religious person claim to have special knowledge of the supernatural, through means that we know are faulty (e.g. revelation), and still be considered a "reasonable" person?

All means are known to be faulty, including those used in science. No dependable method has yet been found for deciding what is a valid scientific observation and what isn't, because all observation is inherently subjective. The question is how faulty they are, and whether they're still good enough to usefully work with. As Popper pointed out, that's a subjective judgement. If you think there's a clear-cut division between science and metaphysics then I suggest that it's time to catch up with the 20th century. The religious person doesn't necessarily "know" revelation to be "faulty" any more than the scientific person (who might be the same person) knows scientific findings to be right. Unfortunately most of the militant atheists are still logical positivists and don't understand why that position collapsed (and often aren't aware that it did). There's plenty of scope for being atheist and up-to-date, but if you know your stuff I reckon you're far more likely to take a position along the lines of William Rowe's, that "some theists are justified in believing in God, even if it is the case that God doesn't exist".

Re:Hopefully

[CapnStank]

Its regarding demographics. The younger culture (Teens -> late 20s) are the dominant presence in online forums such as slashdot or reddit so you'll naturally see a lot more vocal presence in these areas. The same age group happens to be more agnostic or atheist than the older generations. If we had an equal weighting of boomers present you'd see their religious views more frequently.

Re:Hopefully

[keytoe]

While "atheism" may only claim the first, there are plenty of atheists (and most of the prominent, outspoken atheists fall into this camp) which loudly claim the last, and that's what tends to upset people.

So, just like every other group of similarly minded people - no matter the subject - there are a few extremists who are loud enough to convince the rest of the world that they represent the entire group. Why people lend credence to these people is beyond me.

The reality is that there are a lot of different people who believe a lot of different things. There are also a lot of people who feel the need to tell other people what they should believe. These two groups are orthogonal.

Re:Hopefully

[AmonTheMetalhead]

Not too sure about this, I think religion stems from when proto humans began to form language & communities. I think religion was the glue needed to keep the different families together in a collective.

That proto-religion evolved into more complex concepts and the first from of law. It's only when people became capable of expanding their knowledge and civilisation to such an extent that you could have people doing nothing but 'think' that education and real laws came into place. Religion however stayed in place as a glue for the whole community.

This need for religion and faith could be genetic and would explain fundamentalists/fanatics and even conspiracy theorists. As for people going from religion to atheism (or vice versa), I don't think those people had any "real faith" to begin with, but rather went with the flow of their community.

Re:Hopefully

[airdweller]

It's a trap!!!

Re:Hopefully

[mvdwege]

I think you misunderstand what sarcasm is. Here's a tip: it's not necessarily supposed to be funny.

As for what gives it away, I thought rational people could see the hyperbole in statements like 'almost tempted to join a monastery'. Apparently the combination of Poe's Law and Dunning-Kruger effect is particularly strong among some posters here.

Mart

Re:Hopefully

[mvdwege]

But at least I don't have to prove I have balls by spouting empty profanity as an Anonymous Coward.

Mart

Re:Hopefully

[AmonTheMetalhead]

No, I don't believe that.

Perhaps I've explained myself poorly. Let me try again. You've made the claim, "No, I don't believe that," which presumably means that you don't believe that the scientific method is a good way to learn about the universe. I have a little trouble reconciling that with the later claim you made that you accept that the scientific method is the best way we know so far, but I suppose it's possible that the scientific is both the best way we know so far and not a good way.

No you misunderstand me, let me clarify: I accept that the scientific method is the best way to gather knowledge that I know of. I do not believe it is in absolute terms the best method, but since I do not know any better ways I stick with said method. The reason why I use with this method is because it's methodolical and falsifiable, it has nothing to do with believes, but is purely a practical desision.

The reason I say that your claim amounts to a claim that the scientific method is not a good way to learn about the universe is because I said (verbatim,) "do you believe that the scientific method is a good way to learn about the universe?" to which you replied (also verbatim,) "No, I don't believe that." However, I don't want to get bogged down in those details too much, because I have these other details that I want to get bogged down in.

Let's suppose you have a belief, which I'll call A. I don't mean that in the sense of taking A on faith, but rather in the sense that you accept A as being true. Statement A could be "the scientific method is the best method we know of so far" or it could be "no, I don't believe that," or it could be "the method is simple," or it could be "there is no logical, reasonable or provable argument why your faith would be correct and others wrong," or it could be something else entirely. There are only two requirements on A; it is a statement and you accept it as being true. Given that you accept A, there are only two possibilities--either there is a reason for believing A, or there isn't. Let's consider the latter first. If there isn't a reason for believing A then you believe in something that's unprovable (which is something that you've claimed is untrue.) Now let's consider the former. Here, again there are only two possibilities. Either the reason for believing A is A, itself, or it's something else. If the reason for believing A is A itself, then you accept circular reasoning as being valid, and you cannot reject the bible's claim to be accurate--or rather you cannot reject it on the basis of circular reasoning being invalid. If you reject it then it must be on some other basis. If the reason for believing A is something else, then let's give it a name in order to make it easier to reason about. I'll call it A-1. This is where the infinite recursion comes in, because I ask what reason you have for accepting A-1? It must either be unsupportable, or in the A through A-k list, or it must be a new reason which I'll call A-2. The reason that always creating a new reason is a problem is that all finite reasons can be expressed with a finite number of characters, which would mean that you believe at least one thing that cannot be expressed. Now let's turn to the final possibility, that A doesn't exist. That would mean that you don't believe anything. The problem with that is that you've made a large number of statements, and you don't believe any of them. So, to summarize, the following are the only possibilities: 1) You believe in something that's unprovable. 2) You believe circular reasoning is valid. 3) You believe at least one statement that is inexpressible because it's infinitely long. 4) You state things are true when you actually don't believe they are.

The scientific method is a tool, just like mathematics, language and a hammer. Do you believe in a hammer? Or do you accept that a hammer is a proper tool for the proper job?

Your whole

Re:Hopefully

[Hatta]

That's not the claim at all. The claim is that no one can know whatever else there is.

It is certainly the claim of some.

It's barely even a claim, it's practically tautological. Whatever means you can use to determine if something supernatural exists can be repeated by others. That's empiricism.

Well, that's logic and mathematics out of the window, then, because they're not part of science (they're things that science depends on).

You're right. There's absolutely no a priori reason to expect that math and logic would correlate with the phenomena we observe in reality. We only know their value because we have empirically determined it.

All means are known to be faulty, including those used in science.

Yes, that's why we check each others work. Something religious people aren't disposed to do.

If you think there's a clear-cut division between science and metaphysics then I suggest that it's time to catch up with the 20th century.

Then how does one do a metaphysical experiment?

The religious person doesn't necessarily "know" revelation to be "faulty"

Only because he didn't care enough to check.

Unfortunately most of the militant atheists are still logical positivists and don't understand why that position collapsed (and often aren't aware that it did).

Logical positivism is too strong a claim to be supported by the evidence we have. There are absolutely true things that we cannot observe or determine empirically. But since we can't determine them empirically, no one knows what they are.

if you know your stuff I reckon you're far more likely to take a position along the lines of William Rowe's, that "some theists are justified in believing in God, even if it is the case that God doesn't exist".

Once upon a time it was justifiable to believe in Newton's laws of motion, even though they are not actually true. We just didn't have the means to rigorously test them. So yes, it's possible in principle to justifiably believe in something that is not true.

However, if you have the means to test your belief and fail to do so, that's not justifiable. If you make an argument based on revelation, and don't do the leg work to demonstrate that revelation is accurate, then it's not justifiable at all.

Re:Hopefully

[painandgreed]

Good try, but I think we all know which side would win a true tally of evil bastards.

You are correct, but try convincing the atheists on slashdot of that.

You'll have a hard time convincing any religious fanatic of anything. They may not believe in religion, but they seem fanatical about their beliefs on religion.

Re:Hopefully

[Rakarra]

How widespread was the Age of Reason, really? As Westerners, we like to think that Northern and Western Europe is the only thing that counts, and what happens there is reflective of the global situation.

Re:Hopefully

[liquidsin]

but the next step, to be so arrogant as to believe that you can see through the creator's deceptions...that's the one that gets me. i'm pretty sure that if "god" were real and genuinely wanted to trick you, you'd be well and thoroughly tricked.

Re:Hopefully

[lee1]

Well, no, you don't have to. But if the goal is to shut them up and make it more likely that they'll skip over your house the next time, this is reputedly pretty effective. Myself, when I see the vacant expressions and handful of Watchtowers through the window, I just don't answer the door. I tired years ago of whatever sport I can extract from these sad, brainwashed drones.

Re:Hopefully

[Thing 1]

My peripheral vision caught the ending quote first and mangled it, but I really want to share what it thought it saw: "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you (need|should be on) medication." It's a similar sentiment. :)

Re:Hopefully

[dwpro]

Fair enough, it may too broad a stroke to paint it as a contrast between Abrahamic and atheistic points of view, but they do comprise something close to 70% of the population combined, and in the context of the GP arguing with someone going door to door proselytizing seemed a reasonable assumption. With regard to the holy books, whether one believes it is the inerrant word of God or the inspired word of God seems to be of little practical consequence when it is used to construct a belief set that includes unproven miracles as guiding principles.

Re:Hopefully

[Tarlus]

Atheism is defined as being the belief that there is not a god.

Re:Hopefully

[GameboyRMH]

Still it's odd that she didn't believe in dinosaurs. Couldn't she believe that GAWD created dinosaurs (including evolutionary relatives from different times coexisting - so you'd have Cambrian creatures sharing the ocean with plesiosaurs etc.) during the I Dream of Jeannie creation sequence as seen on Family Guy, and then they went extinct somehow?

Re:Hopefully

[Truedat]

Yup, I too find it creepy that certain religious organisations are untouchable and protected to the extent they are by law. I agree that there is a real danger to free speech.

But when you attack some of the more moderate religious elements especially those that take their time to visit slashdot, and in such an obnoxious way like the grandparent poster did, then it's actually counter productive.

Re:Hopefully

[Rakarra]

Converting because someone you like prays is like believing in a scientific theory because the professor has a nice bow tie. People swayed by such an irrelevance are of no loss or gain to either side,

They certainly are if there are enough of them, and numbers matters.

Re:Hopefully

[Rakarra]

They have become a lot louder in the last 40 years. a lot louder. It's gone from a general murmer to yelling.

Do you think we are more or less religiously free and tolerant now, or, say, the 1950s?

Re:Hopefully

[Zontar The Mindless]

Religion can and often is used as means of control of the (unwashed) masses...

I respectfully disagree.

Religion has the sole purpose of providing a means of control of the (unwashed) masses

Re:Hopefully

[LoyalOpposition]

Your whole argument hinges on the claim that I (or someone else) believes in the scientific method while I consider it to be a tool (for lack of a better word).

No. My argument hinges on a statement that I called A, and on your acceptance that A is true. That's why I said, 'Statement A could be "the scientific method is the best method we know of so far"...or it could be something else entirely.' Suppose for a moment that A is the statement, "Slashdot is news for nerds. Stuff that matters." That would be something else entirely than belief in the scientific method. However, my argument still works with that statement because my argument didn't depend on belief in the scientific method at any point. My argument depended only upon there being a statement that you accepted as being true. At this point we can stop supposing that statement A is "Slashdot is news for nerds. Stuff that matters." I make precisely two claims about A. First, it's a statement, and second, you accept it as being true. Now, by the law of generalization (and assuming my argument is valid and my premisses are true) then at least one of my four conclusions must be true. If my argument is invalid then I invite you to show me where I've made my mistake. If my premisses aren't true, then I invite you to tell me why you keep making statements.

My question is simple: Why do you believe in your religion (be it hindusm or christianity) and not in the others?

That may be your question now, but it certainly wasn't what I responded to. What I responded to was your quotation of Stephen F. Roberts, which I repeat here.

Stephen F. Roberts: "...I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

My claim amounted to saying that Roberts' quotation was worthless insofar as rejecting the existence of any one particular god, analogously to it's worth in rejecting the number 2 as the only even prime. I still haven't seen you provide anything to change my mind regarding that.

Let me summarise by saying that I am making two claims. Firstly, you (probably) believe in something without proof. And secondly, Mr. Robert's insight doesn't permit one to reject the existence any particular god.

~Loyal

Re:Hopefully

[Rakarra]

You counter religious believe with science, by definition an all knowing, all mighty god can fake the age of those fossils

Which would mean that God is a liar and a faker, contrary to what the Bible claims.

Re:Hopefully

[digitig]

That's not the claim at all. The claim is that no one can know whatever else there is.

It is certainly the claim of some.

It's barely even a claim, it's practically tautological.

"The scientism dogma that it's all there is" is hardly tautological.

Well, that's logic and mathematics out of the window, then, because they're not part of science (they're things that science depends on).

You're right. There's absolutely no a priori reason to expect that math and logic would correlate with the phenomena we observe in reality. We only know their value because we have empirically determined it.

You couldn't empitically determine it if you didn't already assume them. Empirically determining their value depends on logic.

All means are known to be faulty, including those used in science.

Yes, that's why we check each others work. Something religious people aren't disposed to do.

Something some religious people aren't disposed to do. But my whole discussion is about those that do, and there are a lot of them. Anyway, my point wasn't that an observation might be erroneous, it's about the whole debate about what comprises an observation.

If you think there's a clear-cut division between science and metaphysics then I suggest that it's time to catch up with the 20th century.

Then how does one do a metaphysical experiment?

You can't. But there's a vast grey area where it's unclear whether you can do a valid experiment or not, so it's unclear whether it's science or not. Much of neuroscience is in denial about the assumptions it is making about what it is or isn't measuring, for example.

The religious person doesn't necessarily "know" revelation to be "faulty"

Only because he didn't care enough to check.

Your strawman religious person might not, but I am talking about the thinking theists who really have gone through this in far more detail than you seem to have done.

Unfortunately most of the militant atheists are still logical positivists and don't understand why that position collapsed (and often aren't aware that it did).

Logical positivism is too strong a claim to be supported by the evidence we have. There are absolutely true things that we cannot observe or determine empirically. But since we can't determine them empirically, no one knows what they are.

And there's the whole grey area in between, where we get indications but not enough to be confident. And I'm not defending a "god of the gaps", these are areas where science cannot be confident.

if you know your stuff I reckon you're far more likely to take a position along the lines of William Rowe's, that "some theists are justified in believing in God, even if it is the case that God doesn't exist".

Once upon a time it was justifiable to believe in Newton's laws of motion, even though they are not actually true.

Actually, as Newton stated them they are true, even under relativity. The dumbed down versions we were taught in school were never justifiably believed, because even the ancients knew of systems that changed their mass whilst in motion. But that's a sidetrack.

We just didn't have the means to rigorously test them. So yes, it's possible in principle to justifiably believe in something that is not true.

However, if you have the means to test your belief and fail to do so, that's not justifiable. If you make an argument based on revelation, and don't do the leg work to demonstrate that revelat

Re:Hopefully

[ultranova]

It is the duty of reasonable men to take every step to ensure that their belief system is built on as few and as accurate axioms as possible.

Nobody's belief systems are built on axioms, they're build on cultural osmosis, and culture is built on memetic evolution.

Re:Hopefully

[digitig]

Fair enough, it may too broad a stroke to paint it as a contrast between Abrahamic and atheistic points of view, but they do comprise something close to 70% of the population combined, and in the context of the GP arguing with someone going door to door proselytizing seemed a reasonable assumption. With regard to the holy books, whether one believes it is the inerrant word of God or the inspired word of God seems to be of little practical consequence when it is used to construct a belief set that includes unproven miracles as guiding principles.

I think it's probably entirely fair as far as the doorstepper goes. My problem is with the apparent assumption that [s]he is representative of all religion. And have any of us proven everything we take as guiding principles?

Re:Hopefully

[digitig]

"If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."

You most likely do not understand this sentence.

If you think you understand that sentence ...

Re:Hopefully

[Thing 1]

For example, do you believe that the scientific method is a good way to learn about the universe? If so, then what proof do you have that such might be the case?

Yes I do. The proof? Science makes falsifiable predictions. Religion doesn't. With science, I can tell you based on observation what is about to happen. With religion, not so much.

Re:Hopefully

[AmonTheMetalhead]

Your whole argument hinges on the claim that I (or someone else) believes in the scientific method while I consider it to be a tool (for lack of a better word).

No. My argument hinges on a statement that I called A, and on your acceptance that A is true. That's why I said, 'Statement A could be "the scientific method is the best method we know of so far"...or it could be something else entirely.' Suppose for a moment that A is the statement, "Slashdot is news for nerds. Stuff that matters." That would be something else entirely than belief in the scientific method. However, my argument still works with that statement because my argument didn't depend on belief in the scientific method at any point. My argument depended only upon there being a statement that you accepted as being true. At this point we can stop supposing that statement A is "Slashdot is news for nerds. Stuff that matters." I make precisely two claims about A. First, it's a statement, and second, you accept it as being true. Now, by the law of generalization (and assuming my argument is valid and my premisses are true) then at least one of my four conclusions must be true. If my argument is invalid then I invite you to show me where I've made my mistake.

Again, your argument falls apart because using a methodology is not making a statement. My statement in that case was that I do not know of any better methology to gather knowledge. That statement does not lead to any of your four conclusions:

1) You believe in something that's unprovable. 2) You believe circular reasoning is valid. 3) You believe at least one statement that is inexpressible because it's infinitely long. 4) You state things are true when you actually don't believe they are.

Ergo, your argument fails.

If my premisses aren't true, then I invite you to tell me why you keep making statements.

Because statements in themselves do not lead to any of your four conclusions.

My question is simple: Why do you believe in your religion (be it hindusm or christianity) and not in the others?

That may be your question now, but it certainly wasn't what I responded to. What I responded to was your quotation of Stephen F. Roberts, which I repeat here.

Stephen F. Roberts: "...I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

My claim amounted to saying that Roberts' quotation was worthless insofar as rejecting the existence of any one particular god, analogously to it's worth in rejecting the number 2 as the only even prime.

The intent of that quote is not to make you reject your god(s), but to make you think why you reject others. This is the core sentence in that quote: "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods". The quote does in no way invalidate the existance of a god or gods, nor does it in itself offer any argument why you should dismiss your god(s). Those arguments are provided by yourself once you awnser why you reject other gods.

I still haven't seen you provide anything to change my mind regarding that.

It's plain English. If you do not grasp it that is not my shortcoming.

Let me summarise by saying that I am making two claims. Firstly, you (probably) believe in something without proof. And secondly, Mr. Robert's insight doesn't permit one to reject the existence any particular god.

~Loyal

You are mistaking in the first one and you do not grasp the core idea behind the second.

Re:Hopefully

[Thing 1]

ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS? OR JUST WASTING OUR TIME? hi, i'm the lameness filter, wasting your and my time as well.

Re:Hopefully

[Rosy At Random]

And that's why caring about this is so hard. It's like playing poker without stakes -- you try to take it seriously, appreciating all the subtle flows of information, but most everyone else just wants to press the all-in button as quick as they can. They're not playing the same game as you, and trying to play with them brings your game down too. Ach. It's just saddening, really.

Re:Hopefully

[Thing 1]

Ambiguity is fun to play with, but so are hand grenades.

Re:Hopefully

[Hatta]

"The scientism dogma that it's all there is" is hardly tautological.

Like I said, I don't know anyone who claims that. The claim is that anything we can't determine empirically, we cannot determine. There are almost certainly true statements we cannot demonstrate, but since we can't demonstrate them they are irrelevant to anything that happens.

I can't prove that there's not a God. I can't prove there's not a Flying Spaghetti Monster either. Why should I believe in one and not the other? Without any actual data, aren't they equally rational?

Something some religious people aren't disposed to do. But my whole discussion is about those that do, and there are a lot of them.

Such as? How do they deal with conflicting results from methods such as revelation?

You can't. But there's a vast grey area where it's unclear whether you can do a valid experiment or not, so it's unclear whether it's science or not. Much of neuroscience is in denial about the assumptions it is making about what it is or isn't measuring, for example.

Ah, there I agree. There's a lot of so called science that isn't science at all. Look at the recent Nature paper showing that the published results of most major cancer studies cannot be replicated. But saying that a lot of science isn't science doesn't mean religion is.

Your strawman religious person might not, but I am talking about the thinking theists who really have gone through this in far more detail than you seem to have done.

I am as skeptical of their existence as I am of God's. Rationalizing is not the same as reasoning.

And I'm not defending a "god of the gaps", these are areas where science cannot be confident.

I understand, there are areas where science cannot be confident. But if science cannot be confident there is no other way of determining the truth. None whatsoever. So why should we pay any attention to anyone who claims to know anything about anything beyond the scope of science?

It often depends on whether Leibniz' principle of sufficient reason is true or false.

The pure randomness of quantum mechanics would seem to indicate that it is false.

BTW, thanks for the enjoyable debate.

Re:Hopefully

[StikyPad]

Wow, man, logical failure all the way around. You're completely missing his argument(s), and then claiming the opposite. You're going off on tangents, and he's trying to steer you back to the confines of logical reasoning (in the formal sense, not the informal "things other than crazy-talk" sense). It seems that you may be unfamiliar with formal logic, but his arguments are so basic as to be irrefutable, and saying they're inapplicable doesn't magically make it so.

Re:Hopefully

[FrootLoops]

About your sig, I only meant you could change it to say something like "I am frequently sarcastic" (or something a little subtler). I don't have anything against your current sig.

Re:Hopefully

[FrootLoops]

I have to say I personally treasure some irrationalities.

Hear hear! I absolutely love sexuality myself. Still, there's two definitions of "irrational" I like to distinguish.
(a) A person's actions are irrational if their actions are based on emotion rather than reason.
(b) A person's actions are irrational if their actions follow logically given their emotions as premises.

I case (a), my sexuality is irrational (by the way, I'm gay, so there's no child creation reason there to "justify" it). In case (b), it's quite rational. I prefer definition (b), but it leads to some odd results sometimes, like when a sociopath murders someone that action is rational even if I might be tempted to call the underlying emotions irrational. (Calling emotions rational or irrational is very problematic, so I just sort of ignore the issue most of the time.)

Re:Hopefully

[FrootLoops]

Hah! I was wondering if someone was going to bring up Spock's irrational behavior. To be fair, strangling Kirk in Amok Time was about as rational as irrationality can get. He fought it the entire episode, warned Kirk what might happen, etc. A few other emotional/irrational/odd Spock scenes:

  * Crying in The Naked Time
  * Hippy Spock in This Side of Paradise
  * Spock Sings in Plato's Stepchildren

Re:Hopefully

[centar]

When the Religious Nazis, Relinazis, ask you if you want to go to heaven, say that you dont want to go to heaven. If they ask why, point out that since the path to heaven has been monopolized by the Abrahamic faiths, it is very likely that heaven is overcrowded with ReliNazis, and heaven is in all likely hood, worse than the conditions here on earth!

Re:Hopefully

[centar]

The current crop of atheists is indeed loud, and particularly obnoxious. Maybe they're the ones to blame for the rise in religionism?

I mean, when I see the sheer seething stupidity right here on Slashdot whenever religion comes up, I'm almost tempted to join a monastery.

In the Seventies we had 'Humanists'; they surely were a whole lot nicer than the current crop of idiots.

Mart

No Atheist has ever come knocking on my door to tell me "Good News"

You feel Atheists are loud because what they say actually makes sense, but you dont want to listen to reason because you are afraid to loose the little spot you have reserved in "heaven" and fearful that you might go to "hell" for listening to the reasoning of the "devil"

The "devil" you are afraid of is the Truth, the "heaven" you want to go to is a farm of labrats, the "hell" you are afraid of is the voice of reason and logic that will liberate you from the chains of ignorance.

Yet, you cling on to thousands of year old ideas that have become a great business model, and fail to find and light the path of your own.

Re:Hopefully

[dwpro]

Certainly we cannot prove everything, but to bring the argument full circle, if your belief set requires abject credulity it's not justifiable to put that on equal footing with a skeptical point of view with outliers on both sides.

Re:Hopefully

[cavebison]

It makes me sad how often these beliefs are persecuted

Blame Dawkins for being such an objectionable and easily ridiculed representative. He makes me feel embarrassed to be an atheist.

Re:Hopefully

[bryan1945]

Dude! I don't have a PhD in theology! Some guy said 'what if he has one?"
Fuck man, read better. This is the shit I'm talking about- you think I'm some religious freak, I got a damn BS in EE, a Masters is Info Sci, and a fucking MBA.

FUCK

Re:Hopefully

[bryan1945]

Thanks Truedat. Fun part- I don't even belong to any church, or any organized religion. I just believe in the Christian storyline. Sigh.

Re:Hopefully

[bryan1945]

Yep, it only took 2 posts to prove my point. I just wrote that everything in the real world I treat as real. There is only one thing that separates me from you (well, assuming we have the same socio-political views)- once I die I think I'm going somewhere else. That's it. Nothing about what I do in life has to do with that, I'm not grading myself on what I do in life, but you'll never understand that, will you? You can't believe that I believe in science, the equality of all men and women, that I think that people who base their lives off of religion are idiots, all because I believe in one little thing different from you that will never effect anyone else in real life just because it irks you.

Critical thinking? Perhaps reading my original post would be the fist step FOR YOU to understand the concept.

Re:Hopefully

[bryan1945]

Hey, dope, who says I don't? You think I'm all cool with anti-woman behavior just because I did not specifically mention it? What other parts to I have to fucking specifically point out to you? I don't hate black people, Muslims are OK, women should have a choice about abortions, dinosaurs were real, evolution happens, slavery is bad, smoking causes cancer, did I miss anything?

You're only 1/2 as bad as master_p.

Re:Hopefully

[bryan1945]

Sorry hack, I shouldn't have gone off on you like that. My apologies. No excuses, just flipped my lid for no reason.

Re:Hopefully

[bryan1945]

Well, as you can see right here, I'm talking about it. This is actually beyond my comfort zone, as I described in my original post. But for day-to-day life, it doesn't come up much, except with one inlaw who is Baptist. We have some small talk about the differences, which really isn't much. Like I said, I have no compunction to push my belief on anyone, but I'll talk about it if asked.
And by the way just so you know, I have nothing against gay folk. I got my thing, you got your thing, I'd sit down and down a beer with you no problem.

Re:Hopefully

[bryan1945]

Good point there j-b. The traditional church always said 'bring the truth,' hence all the missions going back to, what, the 1400s? I don't think it does that anymore, but I'm not really into the whole organized thing, so I don't know. If someone asked me about it, I'd probably tell them to go see a priest, but if they wanted to talk to me (for whatever reason), I'd tell them what I believe which the huge sign saying 'this is not canon, this is just me' over my head.
I believe in it, but I could be totally wrong. If it was easy, this thread would be about 40 comments shorter, lol.

Re:Hopefully

[bryan1945]

I do see your point, which is why I never you religion in any argument. Because my religion has nothing to do with any argument I may have. Like I said, the only thing I believe in is that I will go somewhere else when I die. No score card to get there, I just go somewhere.

As for the reason I dropped into the conversation, it was brought up. I feel I have no need to explain at that point why I did drop in. If atheism was being discussed, and you left a comment, would that not be a provocation to those who held a religious different from yours? I am also not here to argue, you have stated yourself well and without bias.

Re:Hopefully

[bryan1945]

The only difference is that I believe in the christian premise that there is something after we die. I know there is no scientific basis for this, I don't believe in psychics and near-death experience stories or any of that. I just believe when I die I will go somewhere else, rather than just 'poof' and done.
I believe in science like everyone here does, is open to all others' beliefs, believes in the equality of everyone. No (non)intelligent design, yes dinosaurs were real, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is awesome, that kind of thing. I don't go about my day thinking "How will this affect me after I die?" I die, I go somewhere, what I do today doesn't affect that.
I can't really explain it better than that. Hope that helped.

Re:Hopefully

[bryan1945]

Yeah, AC, somehow I thought /. would be a cut above par over the internet. Sadly, it used to be more info, less flame. And even the flaming was better. The goatse poster and the machinations he went through just to fool the filters to post his ASCII pic was nearly epic. Good times, good times.

Re:Hopefully

[bryan1945]

Um, why? I specifically said it is what I believe. I don't care if you believe in it. I was not trying to defend it or prove it. You just did exactly what I said what would happen- I espoused a PERSONAL belief and was attacked on it. What was I trying to prove, I can think for myself? That you can't read a simple posting? Wait, I just proved the previous 2.

If you were trying to troll, that was pretty sad. If you were trying to for an argument, that was worse. Especially with a 100K ID#.

Re:Hopefully

[bryan1945]

Never said I was a good Christian. Just that I am one. I also play basketball, yet somehow LeBron keeps dunking on me.

Re:Hopefully

[bryan1945]

How nice for you.

Re:Hopefully

[FrootLoops]

I don't drink, but thank you :). Feel free not to respond, but I'm a former Christian and am always curious about how others handle some of the apparent contradictions that made me give it up. How do you reconcile the statement, "I have no compunction to push my belief on anyone," with, say, Matthew 28:19, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." There are quite a few similar verses exhorting evangelism. It seems to make perfect sense, too, since eg. John 3:36 implies that unbelievers will be punished forever in hell ("The one who believes in the Son has eternal life. The one who rejects the Son will not see life, but God’s wrath remains on him."). And of course there's quite a bit of condemnation against gay folk strewn about the Bible--I'd be very surprised if Paul would have had your accepting view.

I ultimately opted to simply call most of the Bible crap, though I do like large swaths of it, like Jesus' general ~"love others and be kind to everyone" philosophy, and much of the advice in Proverbs.

Re:Hopefully

[The Raven]

Not so at all. More accurately, as the believers become marginalized, a vocal minority are getting scared and violent. A higher percentage of the populace is atheist or agnostic every year (when you look at worldwide trends), and because of that the religious incumbents lash out and do their best to legislate religion to retain their power base as long as possible.

But don't mistake this very public attempt as an actual resurgence of belief; it is a smokescreen, a ploy.

Re:Hopefully

[fnj]

Thank you for a very thoughtful reply. The point where I believe creationism and intelligent design do differ is in the specifics. I.D. as I understand it does not deny evolution. It does not make silly claims such as the universe being created 6000 years ago. It may speculation on the particulars of the designing agency, but does not assign a particular mystical one. I could be mistaken in this distinction, but in any case that's what I personally think of as I.D.

I don't disagree strongly with any of your ideas re: religion. For my own part, it would probably surprise our zealous moderator friends to learn that I have not made up my own mind, and don't have any dogmatic beliefs. I do have questions.

Re:Hopefully

[fnj]

Thank you for the interesting engagement. I mostly see your points as good ones. I particularly like your idea on sleep. It's worth mentioning just a few areas where it seems to me the question hasn't been met.

On two and only two sets of teeth being an economy (if I may paraphrase): the mechanism evolved to regenerate teeth. The evolutionary energy has already been expended. The point that two sets is enough to ensure propagation of the species is a good one. But why did evolution continue to operate and come up with a mechanism to "turn off" the regeneration ability after a single cycle? That would appear to be a pointless evolutionary step.

Do you really think that two kidneys confers more advantage than two hearts?

Re:Hopefully

[fnj]

One assumes that you would be as dismissive of biochemist Michael Behe of Lehigh University, microbiologist Scott Minnich at the University of Idaho, and mathematician William Dembski at Baylor University. I doubt, however, that you would convince many thinkers by categorizing them as stupid. Intelligent design theorists do not so dismiss evolutionists.

Assuming you would like to learn a bit about the difference between intelligent design and creationism, you could check the following:

Intelligent Design and Creationism Just Aren't the Same
What is Intelligent Design?
Darwin's Black Box

Re:Hopefully

[crutchy]

reads a lot like religious preaching to me. thanks for the link.

Re:Hopefully

[j-beda]

But why did evolution continue to operate and come up with a mechanism to "turn off" the regeneration ability after a single cycle? That would appear to be a pointless evolutionary step.

Do you really think that two kidneys confers more advantage than two hearts?

Evolution doesn't have a "point". There was no "decision". One baby lost the ability to regenerate, and it had descendants. Those descendants had lots of kids. Why did the non-regenerators "win"? Well, in the beginning it was mostly luck, any number of accidents could have killed off that first kid, independent of the regeneration. Later on, when there were a whole bunch of them, butter statistics came into play, and that change must have had some advantage.

I think you misunderstood my energy/cost statements. Comparing two identical lizards, one with regeneration and one without, it could be that the regeneration biology takes a bit more energy to survive than the non-regeneration one, just like being a cheetah takes more energy than being a turtle. Living in the same ecological niche, needing more energy is a disadvantage unless some other benefit comes into play.

Evolution does not guarantee that a creature will be optimal, it could well be true that two hearts would be better than two kidneys. That sounds more like an argument against "intelligent design" - what sort of idiot would put blood vessels over top of the light sensitive cells on the mammalian retina?

It's worth mentioning just a few areas where it seems to me the question hasn't been met.

I think that in the broad brushstrokes, answers/stories/explanations to the types of questions that people like you and I can come up with are considered pretty much solved in evolutionary biological circles. They have been trying to poke holes and patch them up in the model for 200+ years - we are unlikely to come up with any clear deficiency. Evolutionary principles are universal - any time you have a system that produces copies that have variations and experience selection forces MUST "evolve" - this is true in breeding as well as computer coding and fashion. While evolutionary forces COULD involve some supernatural forces, there has to date been no need to invoke one, when the details of any particular issue are examined. To invoke one without a physical need seems a bit intellectually inefficient.

Re:Hopefully

[Reservoir Penguin]

I have completed an equivalent of of US upper undergraduate course in Evolution theory as part of my education in Biochemistry. Thank you for trying but I do not think I can learn anything of value from popular websites with such screaming names. As i said I could write an essay about why having only one liver but two lungs in now way disproves origin of species trough evolution or points to an intelligent designer, but it would require you to have an equivalent education in molecular biology, human genetics, population genetics, physiology in addition to being up to date on undergraduate math. I did look through front pages and FAQs of the sites just to be considerate to you, and really nothing new there from the Discovery Institute and the likes. And no virtually all biologists do not detect "apparent design". I do not like to get involved in link pasting matches, if you have something to say against evolution that is not a list of points from ID think tank your are welcome.

Re:Hopefully

[LoyalOpposition]

Again, your argument falls apart because using a methodology is not making a statement.

You're overlooking the possibility of making statements about methodologies. For example, much earlier when I made the statement, "the scientific method is a good way of finding out about the universe," then I was making a statement. And, the particular statement I made was one concerning a methodology. Now returning to my argument--the steps of the argument depended only upon there being a statement having a particular property. The particular property was the property of your acceptance that it was true. In other words, any claim that you held as properly describing the way things are. Now let me offer you a dilemma. As the first horn of the dilemma, suppose a statement exists that you accept, and suppose it's not about methodologies. Then the conclusion is that you believe some statement, not necessarily the same one, that has no proof. As the second horn of the dilemma, suppose a statement exists that you accept, and suppose that it is about methodologies. Then the conclusion is that you believe some statement that has no proof. The conclusion of the dilemma is that you believe some statement that has no proof, because it's the conclusion of both horns of the dilemma. Being about a methodology is irrelevant when it comes to discerning between statements that lead to the conclusion.

The intent of that quote is not to make you reject your god(s), but to make you think why you reject others. This is the core sentence in that quote: "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods". The quote does in no way invalidate the existance of a god or gods, nor does it in itself offer any argument why you should dismiss your god(s). Those arguments are provided by yourself once you awnser why you reject other gods.

Unfortunately, as I described earlier, those arguments also lead me to reject the number 2 as an even prime. I know a number of rules of inferrence. There's modus ponens. There's modus tollens. There's reasoning by analogy. There's syllogism. There's reductio ad absurdum. There's generalization. There's existential generalization. There's universal specialization. Now Roberts is offering me a new rule of inferrence that I can't find in any of the literature, and leads me to what I'm pretty sure are false conclusions. I have to reject such a rule.

You are mistaking in the first one and you do not grasp the core idea behind the second.

Fair enough. Point out my mistake to me and help me grasp the core idea. It's not enough to tell someone they're making a mistake. For example, would you allow me to use that on you? "Oh, well, you see you're making a mistake. Now you'll have to reject your previous conclusions and adopt mine." Did you find that convincing? If not, then neither should I find it convincing when you claim that I have made one.

~Loyal

Re:Hopefully

[FrootLoops]

You continually make me curious. If you had to say why you call yourself a Christian and what beliefs that entails in a few sentences, how would you do so?

Re:Hopefully

[jdavidb]

There are many shades of Agnosticism but there is only one of Atheism and that is "There is nothing supernatural." There is nothing in that statement that attacks anyone. People just feel attacked by it. I don't claim to understand why.

Actually there are multiple perspectives on atheism by atheists. I was reading about one such debate just last week from an atheist blogger I read, and when I used to be more active on Wikipedia I know there were edit wars on the subject.

As far as feeling threatened, I don't feel threatened by atheism as long as we agree on a common core of rights, including mine and my family's right to be left alone. I start to feel threatened when atheists assert that they ought to be able to influence my children's belief system, and I am emphatically definitely threatened when they start wanting to be able to use my property to implement their goals. I feel just as threatened when religious people do the same kind of things, by the way. But when we agree on a common "I'll leave you alone, and you leave me alone," basis for rights I don't feel threatened by atheism at all, and in the past it's led to a lot of productive exchanges.

Re:Hopefully

[jwhitener]

The most reasonable religious folks I know tend to treat all the Writings as myth and allegory, and put God's influence in a place that does not interact with the physical world except for a few visions sent to holy folks from time to time. Basically they think that their religion boils down to a divinely inspired way to lead a good life, and that is about it. No creationism, no guidance of evolution, didn't touch the big bang, doesn't cause miracles, there is no rapture coming, there is no heaven or hell, etc..

And just like the constitution, the religious writings need to be interpreted in modern times, and trimmed of the parts that were put in because of the biases found in the age they were crafted in.

All in all, it seems like what they are left with is nothing more than a set of moral beliefs that could be derived from just about any religion or philosophy. So why they choose to pick one religion over another still tends to baffle me.

But I do think of people like that as somewhat reasonable. You can't prove or disprove whether some prophet was divinely inspired, so you either belief it, or you don't. God influencing the physical world though, that is something that can be countered by finding a scientific reason for something in nature. Cutting God out of the physical realm removes the God of the Gaps thing.

Re:Hopefully

[jwhitener]

You can't prove or disprove whether some prophet was divinely inspired, so you either belief it, or you don't.

I should have noted that I bet someday we will be able to prove or disprove the above. Bring the prophet in, run a powerful new type of MRI scan of the brain, find that the vision was actually caused by some physical abnormality or other bio-chemical process.

At that point you're left with a God of the Gaps situation again. What caused the bio-chem process? Nothing we know of right now. 10 years later we find X to explain it, so you move God one step back in the process again, repeat.

So I should have said that I basically agree with you:)

Re:Hopefully

[jwhitener]

It would actually be kind of ironic if evolution was the cause for the existence of religion I guess.

Actually, evolution is most likely the cause for people to tend towards ritualistic group beliefs. I was just listening to a talk on this very subject. But I can't for the life of me remember what it was... maybe a Ted Talk or something.

Anyway, this skims some of the thought behind evolutions role in bringing about religion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_origin_of_religions

Re:Hopefully

[KeensMustard]

"Reason and religion are not mutually exclusive" - they do not have to be, but when you read of the constant attacks on teaching Evolution in the USA and the creation of Creationist Museums that show people frolicking with dinosaurs then you have say that there is a growing religious attack on common sense.

Given the declining influence of the US and the relatively small number of people there, I would say that that is anecdotal at best. Also you imply that secular American thinking is common sense, which I disagree with.

Re:Hopefully

[mvdwege]

Now, this is the sheer seething stupidity demonstrated.

You are irrationally attacking me as a 'believer' based on an assumption. I'm afraid of no hell, have particular belief in 'heaven'.

On the other hand, you just proved my point that current atheists are irrational, loud, and obnoxious.

Thank you.

Mart

Re:Hopefully

[Nadaka]

Hitlers faith in the blame of the jews, the religion of his own construction was responsible for the Holocaust.

Re:Hopefully

[digitig]

They were factors, but he couldn't have done it on his own.

Re:Hopefully

[Em Adespoton]

Are you sure these reasonable religious people are not just dressing up their faith in the trappings of reason to make it sound better?

I think you'll find they're dressing up their faith in trappings of faith, while failing to neglect the application of reason. Since you can't prove God exists and you can't prove God doesn't exist, why not apply reasoning skills to things empirical, and if this reasoning collides with something faith-based, question the roots of that article of faith? Hey... that's even biblical.

Re:Hopefully

[master_p]

Very good reply. Kudos to you, sir!

Re:Hopefully

[master_p]

Was not my comment civil and respectful? I think it was.

As for being 'convinced of my own perspective', here is a mathematical proof that God does not exist:

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/sgs8t/can_this_work_as_a_math_proof_that_god_does_not/

Re:Hopefully

[master_p]

I did not say politicians use only religion for their nefarious purposes. But if religion was not available, they would have one less excuse.

Re:Hopefully

[master_p]

It is not a matter of opinion. God simply does not exist, and it can be proven mathematically:

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/sgs8t/can_this_work_as_a_math_proof_that_god_does_not/

Re:Hopefully

[master_p]

In no way I can believe that believing in something so fundamental like religion does not affect you in ways that it should not.

Take, for example, your request to be left alone. By not letting one criticise you on your beliefs, you help open the door for creationism in education: your right to be left alone is another man's right to be left alone too, and that includes educating his children on creationism.

Another example is politics: when you hear the politicians speaking about how God instructed them to act, your belief in the supernatural will certainly affect your judgement at some point. You believe that God is real, and so, in a moment of difficulty, why not believe God speaks to G. Bush, for example?

By the way, here is a mathematical proof that God does not exist:

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/sgs8t/can_this_work_as_a_math_proof_that_god_does_not/

You can argue with me on the existence of God till "hell freezes over", but you cannot argue with Mathematics.
 

Re:Hopefully

[TFAFalcon]

Binary follows the same rules as decimal, hexadecimal or any other system. It's just that numbers are written with different groups of symbols. Prime numbers ('eleven' for example) will be prime in each of them. You might write it as 11, B, or 1011, but you're still thinking of the same number.
Sure you could argue that the first poster did not specify that he was speaking of a decimal 2. But you also did not specify which decimal system you are using. Your assertion that there are only the numbers 0 and 1 would be wrong in a system that used X and O to mark down numbers.

Re:Hopefully

[TFAFalcon]

The question is why do you NOT believe in other gods? If you can answer that question, then you'll be one step closer to understanding why people don't believe in YOUR god.

Re:Hopefully

[Seedy2]

As a counter argument, I'd ask; do you think it logical for any reasonable individual to become religious purely out of protest to atheists?

No. Do you think it logical for any reasonable individual to become atheist purely out of protest to the religious? I know quite a few people who say that they have (especially out of protest against Roman Catholicism), but whether they're "reasonable people" is up for debate.

Most of the people I know who want to "protest" or annoy or whatever their [parents] religion go the route of "anti-religion" aka satanism.
They still cling to the trappings of religion, that is their comfort zone, but they don't want to follow the norms.

Most of the atheists or agnostics I know move in that direction from religion due to dissatisfaction with the religion, not due to some rebellious feelings.

Re:Hopefully

[darnkitten]

There are many shades of Agnosticism but there is only one of Atheism and that is "There is nothing supernatural."

Disagree:

There are many shades of atheism, from the denial of the existence/divinity of a single aspect of a single god while accepting other aspects; through the denial of the existence/divinity of a single god or a pantheon while accepting other gods in the pantheon or other pantheons; through denial of the existence/divinity of all but a single pantheon, small set of gods (i.e. Trinity), or single god, to denial of any god while believing in a universal "spirit" to denial of any gods whatsoever. All of these are historical perspectives that have resulted in charges of atheism. Socrates was convicted, among other things, of atheism, though referencing god/gods in his defense. Christians were executed for atheism during the days of Rome, though believing in a single God. Catholics and Protestants accused each other of atheism during and long after the Reformation, though believing in the same God.

Nowadays the term is often used as a catch-all for a denial of or disbelief in the supernatural, a further shade beyond the "a - theism" of its original meaning; and yet I have met soi disant atheists who would not enter a "haunted" building alone or who claim some sort of spirituality. Some would claim that these are not atheists, but I would say that they do not meet the requirements of a particular shade of atheism.

Re:Hopefully

[darnkitten]

People say they're atheist or agnostic, no problem. Someone says they're Christian, like I have in the past, and I'll get a bunch of replies mocking my belief in "fairy tales" and "how's that intelligent design going for you."

I see overt attacks by atheists and agnostics on Christians and by Christians on atheists and agnostics--admittedly more of the former than the latter. I also see posts on both sides which are interpreted as attacks, though possibly not intended as such. Oftentimes, what seems as a reasoned, passionless and (in my case, probably pedantic :) ) post is felt by a recipient to be biased, condescending, hurtful or malicious. On the extremes, I have seen posters on both sides who apparently believe that failing to mention or to agree with their positions constitute an attack, or those, again on both sides, who appear to believe that their advocacy (I was gonna use the word "evangelism" but given the subject, decided it could be misconstrued) could not possibly be offensive.

And then there are the trolls.

No solution, just noticing the lack of empathy on the 'net. Again.

Re:Hopefully

[digitig]

I certainly know some people who have become outspoken atheists out of hostility to their experiences in Roman Catholic church schools. Whether you call that "rebellion" or "dissatisfaction" is up to you.

Re:Hopefully

[digitig]

I'd like to punch you in the nose and ask YOU if there is an objective reality. It still hurts either way doesn't it?

Yes, if I have the subjective experience of somebody punching me on the nose, I expect there would be a subjective experience of pain. What does that prove about objective reality?

Measure it, verify it, believe it. Is the sun real or matrix flow? What does it matter? It is still going to appear to be there. You form beliefs starting from the most basic belief that you exist. I think, therefore, I am. The existence of X is verifiable.

You do realise that Descartes was only able to get from "I think, therefore, I am" to his equivalent of "The existence of X is verifiable" by invoking God (an unverifiable metaphysical assumption), don't you? And that many modern scientists consider thought to be an illusion?

The non-falsifiable part is that the cucumber on mars made it all happen.

One of very many unfalsifiable parts. Try catching up with why logical positivism collapsed in the 20th century. You could start with finding out what Popper's idea of falsifiability was really about, and his argument that the boundary between what is objective and what is subjective is nothing but a social convention. The approach you describe is good enough for the simple cases but it collapses -- badly -- on the tricky cases. Most scientists don't have to worry about that because they're not dealing with those edge cases, which is why they're rarely taught the philosophy of science and can still do the job perfectly well. But when they pontificate on the edge cases or the philosophy of science they tend to embarrass themselves, as with Stephen Hawking's nonsense claim that "Any sound scientific theory, whether of time or of any other concept, should in my opinion be based on the most workable philosophy of science: the positivist approach put forward by Karl Popper and others" (nonsense because Karl Popper vehemently opposed the positivist approach).

Re:Hopefully

[19thNervousBreakdown]

You've made me curious. How is someone supposed to tell when you're being sarcastic, considering how many silly statements get made on the internet?

Think, for three seconds. Then consider how stupid you'll look if you missed some irony. If that's below your tolerance or you really think it's genuine after thinking for said three seconds (about whether it's a real post, not about how mad the way you took it makes you), and you feel like you need to post about it, go nuts.

Many people use smilies, italics, excessive punctuation, sarcasm tags, etc., but you use none of the above.

Those things are, at best, the literary equivalent of a *rimshot*. I tend to picture somebody who has to regularly wipe drool from their keyboard when I see that stuff used earnestly.

Re:Hopefully

[19thNervousBreakdown]

ahaha, I love that the "see also" on that page consists solely of adequacy.org.

Re:Hopefully

[19thNervousBreakdown]

No, explain it again using more allcaps.

Re:Hopefully

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Just make sure to put ear-tags on the mulligans your sisters will be popping out.

Re:Hopefully

[WastedMeat]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalism

This is a problem with any vaguely democracy-like system. Your children are going to be biased towards your believes, so that with a larger family, your political influence is ultimately propagated across more votes. Your actual power in a democracy, assuming you do not hold office, is correlated with the number of children you have. Therefore, your capability to influence the nation is negatively correlated with your educational level and positively correlated with your religiosity.

Democratic governments have to be biased towards the politics of those who breed like rabbits.

Re:Hopefully

[WastedMeat]

It isn't genetics...at least that is not the mechanism. It's indoctrination. It's being told from the time that you could first parse language that there are infinitely bad consequences for questioning certain things.

Here is a relevant post from the past: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2738993&cid=39431381

It might take a kid five or six years to overcome the virtual threat of no Christmas presents if they do not believe, and acknowledge that Santa Claus is an unreasonable concept that had been passed to them as truth their entire life. Many adults never overcome the virtual threat of eternity in hell.

Tennessee Theocracy

[Doc Ruby]

In more related news, Tennessee just attacked science to make it harder to teach evolution and climatology because theocrats can't handle the truth.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[bobwrit]

This isn't the first time that Tennessee has taken an anti-science position either. The unfortunate thing is, it's not the only state moving in that direction. A few years ago, I remember Texas was thinking of doing the same. The larger issue with Texas doing that, however, is that Texas happens to be of of the main producers of school text books in the US. I, personally, use that piece to explain why the US is so lacking in science education- the people writing the text books are under heavy theocratic control :(

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

When I pray, I pray that science gathers more knowledge for mankind such that we can create solutions to solve world hunger and disease. I never understood why a Christian would want to be against science when science is seeking truth. God is truth, so Christians should welcome the enlightenment of science. I evangelize to both unbelievers and believers alike that there is no conflict between the Bible and science. Related: An article on the Long Day Theory

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[Renraku]

Now they're seeking to make abstinence-only education the norm and to define hand holding and kissing as sexual behavior. I wish my state would also ban dentistry so we can look like the fucking toothless yokels we are for letting shit like this pass.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[cheater512]

no conflict between the Bible and science

Except thats not entirely true.
Science and the Bible conflict an awful lot. Straight from page 1 onwards.

What you meant to say was that your religious world view and your scientific world view do not conflict.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah? Arizona just declared pregnancy starts first day of gestation, which is two weeks prior to actual conception.

Personally, I think anyone who uses religion as an active part of their political platform, and freely talks about how it affects their decisions, should be disqualified and removed if they're in office. Religion has no place anywhere near politics. The first sentence of the first amendment says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion [...]

Seriously. wtf.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[donscarletti]

Science and the Bible conflict an awful lot. Straight from page 1 onwards.

I think what you are missing after that is "...for about 5 pages, then that bit about the flood a bit later, and then extremely rarely for the bulk of that quite hefty book."

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[hack slash]

If America wants to make itself even more ignorant and closed minded, fine, just stop enforcing your fucked up shit on the rest of the world.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[FrootLoops]

You made me curious. I opened up a Bible to 3 random places around 1/4, 2/4, and 3/4ths in and read about half a page each. Whether or not science and the Bible conflict apparently depends a lot on your view of the scientific merit of miracles and how literally you interpret things.

1/4th:
  * 2 Samuel 21:15-22 -- historical summary of King David's battles with Philistines; probably unobjectionable.
  * 2 Samuel 21:20 -- describes a man with polydactylism, rare but certainly existent.
  * 2 Samuel 21:19 -- appears to conflict with 1 Chronicles 20:5; here Goliath is killed, whereas there Goliath's brother is killed. Contradictions might be deemed unscientific.

2/4ths:
  * Isaiah 51:10 -- miracle described: "Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made a road in the depths of the sea so that the redeemed might cross over?" (Presumably referring to the parting of the Red Sea.)
  * Isaiah 51:13,15 -- creation/God described: "[I] who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth" / "[I] who churns up the sea so that its waves roar" / "I who set the heavens in place, who laid the foundations of the earth". Saying God churns up the sea to the exclusion of a complex interplay between wind, tides, and other forces would be scientifically inaccurate, at least.

3/4ths:
  * Matthew 9:14-17 -- nothing scientific here; "Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins" and such.
  * Matthew 9:18-26 -- two miracles. A woman is healed because, as Jesus says, "your faith has healed you." Also, Jesus resurrects a dead girl.

To someone who thinks miracles are scientifically impossible (or at least so improbable as to be practically impossible), the above conflicts quite a bit with science. A literal interpretation of the second Isaiah passage would also conflict, though a more metaphorical one would not.

Whether or not the Bible and science conflict depends quite heavily on who you ask and their other views. Simply saying, "the Bible and science do (not) conflict" isn't actually that informative.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[Barsteward]

fuck me... yet more evidence that religionists spin more than politicians. who needs hydro-power when you've got religionists.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[Terrasque]

From my point of view, science and religion is equal and opposite.

In religion, you have the explanation, then you try to find and change the facts to fit that.

In science, you have the facts, then you try to find and change the explanation to fit them.

And if you look at it that way, it's easy to see why so many are uncomfortable with science. It's changing, moving, unsure, insecure. What is truth today might be hogwash tomorrow. And humans also have an instinctive impulse to follow those that seem to be most certain.

Science, due to the way it is, changing (sometimes drastically) as new facts or better explanations surface, is easily seen as unsure and less convincing. Religion, on the other hand, have had the same explanation for everything for hundreds of years. It's safe. Reassuring. Comforting. It gives you a cliff to build your self on.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[heathen_01]

* 2 Samuel 21:19 -- appears to conflict with 1 Chronicles 20:5; here Goliath is killed, whereas there Goliath's brother is killed. Contradictions might be deemed unscientific.

That was his twin brother, also named Goliath.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[Doc Ruby]

If you ignore the parts of the bible that aren't metaphysics, then they don't conflict. Because metaphysics is what cannot be dis/proven, while science is only what can be dis/proven. But there's a lot of myth and miracle in there. And most Christians (and Jews, and Muslims, and Hindus in their books, and Buddhists in theirs, etc) insist on the myths and miracles to insist on the metaphysics.

And then there's the parts of the bible that insist on getting others to believe the non-metaphysics by telling them myths and miracles. Those are probably the most anti-scientific parts.

But religion is faith, which is thinking that doesn't exclude completely conflicting ideas from one another. It's science (from its underlying logic) that excludes one or another contradictory idea from accepted knowledge. So I prefer religious thinking that respects and prefers science, even if it also accepts ideas that science completely rejects. Just so long as the religious fantasy world is kept personal, and not too many people make bad decisions based on the fantasy instead of the hard reality we all must share.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[chuckymonkey]

People often ask me why I decided to home school my children and love to say they'll be socially stunted. Here is the reason, when you can't rely on teachers or textbooks to teach actual science or the search for knowledge then they stop being able to teach. I want my children to be critical thinkers, ones that believe in the scientific method and have a strong curiosity of the world around them. Here's also a fun little thing for you, despite all the wonderful anecdotal evidence out there I bet that most of the time you couldn't separate a home schooled kid from a public schooled kid if the home schooled kid isn't one of the religious nutjobs(of whom there are far too many).

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[lwriemen]

Even though I agree that America needs to end it's imperialism, isn't the article concerning "ignorant and closed minded" events in India and Kuwait? Let's face it, ignorance is a universal concept.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[couchslug]

You have no evidence god is truth or that god even exists.

You are merely babbling from positions of both Biblical and scientific illiteracy.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[hackula]

Ha. this is a joke. In between page 5 and the flood we have 9 foot tall giants. Care to provide evidence? I hate how theists always seem to hide behind the idea that there god is unfalsifiable (not that it is really something to brag about, since it pretty much means you have made a nonsense claim), while also making all sorts of empirically FALSIFIED claims, showing their disregard for empirical evidence.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[sorak]

Hi. I'm the other liberal in Tennessee. Nice to meet you.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[Arker]

I am afraid he is correct.

The bible is simply a book. No particular theological or epistemological viewpoint is inherent to that book.

Some people come to that book with a set viewpoint, expecting the bible to be literal word of G_d with every word true and all that. That certainly is not a view consistent with science, nor is it a view consistent with the bible itself.

Others have other views of the bible may be radically different and not necessarily conflict with science or scientific thinking in any way.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[mdielmann]

In some cultures, hand holding and kissing are sexual, or at least very intimate. In others, they're things that people will do as a greeting with even casual acquaintances. I suspect that the majority of Americans fall into the first category.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[cffrost]

That this guy can make a little joke from a bad situation is no reason to deny him karma with Funny mods.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[cheater512]

Ok very simple example, Noah's Ark.
Scientifically, it never happened as stated. They've pinpointed what flood is probably being referred to but it isn't what is described.

Noah's Ark isn't a theological position - its written as a literal recount of history.
There is minimal interpretation required and it is not a metaphor.

How is that not a conflict?
A standard flood where many people die != world wide flood killing everything.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[Doc Ruby]

The bible says that something it calls god says that it is omnipotent and demands worship by certain practices. That is a theological viewpoint. I could go on.

Trust someone who spells "god" as "G_d" to insist that the bible does not have an inherent theological viewpoint. You faithy people are crazy - especially when you expect to say things like that in public without being considered at least ridiculous, and probably more like schizophrenic.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[Doc Ruby]

And fertilization happens long after the day Arizona inisists, which is the last menstruation day.

You faithy theocrats should shut up already. Your Wikipedia privileges are revoked until you stop lying.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[Doc Ruby]

The religious right isn't getting the US bashed for merely existing. It's getting properly defended from as it enforces its theocracy on the rest of us in the US. When the loudmouths are high profile because they're passing laws governing whole states, that's a fundamentalist shift of the country to theocracy.

The theocrats' greatest scam is convincing the rest of us that you don't exist. When someone gets stoned for blasphemy in Tennessee you'll know: you'll have cast the first stone. By legalizing it and protecting that theocracy with BS like you just shoveled here. You're on Taliban Road, believer.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[Doc Ruby]

So Tennessee students that get bad science educations by law don't matter to you. So Arizona women who can't have abortions don't matter to you. Because you're not a Tennessee student or an Arizona woman. Or any of the other people directly affected by these new theocratic laws.

OK, that's your privilege not to care about theocracy that doesn't affect you. YET. But denying that these new theocratic laws aren't a movement towards - or rather, within - theocracy is the hallucination. The denial that it won't affect directly you soon enough (even before you need your girlfriend, sister etc to get an abortion) is a schizophrenic disconnection from reality.

The existence of churchgoers who aren't theocrats (directly) is meaningless in the undeniable theocratic laws that the people in the next pew over are forcing on some of us. Of course these theocrats won't rest until they've stopped you buying Jack Daniels, going to porn theaters or strip clubs or enjoying your cable porn. Of course they won't rest until it's your county. This is obvious - it's the theocrats' stated goal, as it always is of any brand or era theocrat.

The US does not belong on any theocracy scale, whether a 1 or a 10. The US says right up front that it's not a theocracy. Except now it is, more than it was before.

By the time the theocrats are killing people in the US for "sinning", it will be too late. They're already setting up Americans to die rather than sin, by outlawing abortions. Women have already died from these theocrats, either by continuing the pregnancy when abortion is cut off, or by getting illegal abortions that go wrong. And that's just on abortion, the most obvious example of theocratic killings.

Wake up. This should bother you. Otherwise it will soon enough, in a very real and material way, when it's too late to do anything about it.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[Arker]

Saying the Bible contradicts science is as silly as saying that the Gilgamesh epic, or Shakespeare, contradict science. It's just missing the point. Biblical literalists are missing the point, but I am afraid you are as well. The Bible isnt a science textbook, nor is it the direct and literal word of G_d, and you are being just as perverse in insisting on reading it as the former as they are when they insist it be read as the latter.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[Doc Ruby]

No, the point is precisely that biblical literalists are missing the point and insisting that the bible be used instead of science. That requires pushback, especially when they protect their replacement of science with flimflam like "the bible doesn't contradict science".

Or your nonsense "the bible doesn't have a inherent theological viewpoint". Or how you call biblical literalists "they", while you're so superstitious that you won't even type the three letters in the word "god". You're preposterous.

No, it shouldn't matter that the bible contradicts science. It's a myth. But if people were rewriting education and health laws based on their faith in Sumerian myths or Shakespeare, it would suddenly matter that they contradict science.

These theocrats are real, they are a threat - and they're winning. Religious denial enigmas like you are the grease on their wheels.

Re:Tennessee Theocracy

[Arker]

You are correct that they require... counter-action. 'Pushback' is a simplistic framing and part of the reason you are less effective than you should be in your efforts. Opposing force with force is wasted effort, the effective tactician meets his opponents strengths with weakness, yielding the battle quickly onto his own strengths, before pushing back. Judo not karate as the saying goes.

Showing respect for tradition is not an endorsement of superstition. That, sir, is preposterous.

If people were rewriting laws based on Sumerian myths or Shakespeare, what would matter would not be assaulting these foundations of our literature and civilisation, but rather the specific errors in the proposed laws, or the general errors in the approach of those who are misusing this literature.

To put it another way, all you do when they propose these laws is issue a response that many people will perceive (and quite understandably) as an assault on the basis of their culture. That's not drawing flies with honey my friend. I can tell them which biblical verses are being misinterpreted and how. Much more effective out here in red-state land.

Nothing to see here...

[alphakappa]

Anyone can register a case for pretty much anything in India. If the police actually arrested the guy, or if he was convicted of blasphemy, it would be worth talking about. Right now, it's just a bunch of nutcases filing a case, not the government. Let's not fall for hyperbole.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[jensend]

Another reason not to bother talking about this now: given the state of the Indian justice system, it may well happen that all parties involved are deceased before this actually gets a court date.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[sirdude]

Or as in some cases, you need a court date because you are dead.

Technology...

[hcs_$reboot]

Some "miracles" also happened a few hundreds years ago... But unfortunately nobody could catch anything on tape at the time. And now some schools teach creationism...
Too bad the only true and fortunate miracle that should have but didn't happen at the time was the invention of the video camera.

Such a non-story

[Dahamma]

NO chance anyone would actually get tried for blasphemy against the Catholic Church in Mumbai.

Not only does 98% of the local population not give a shit, but the church leaders in the Vatican will be smacking their foreheads when they see this. They have been trying for the last couple hundred years to undo the massive ill-will they have caused persecuting/prosecuting "heretics" throughout the ages...

Re:Such a non-story

[orzetto]

You do realise the current white-clad wizard in the Vatican had quite a career in the Inquisition, and that during that period he actively pursued a policy of hiding from the public eye priests that raped children, moving them to other parished where they would keep raping children, so that the good name of the Vatican would not be blemished? That guy does not get anything of public relations.

Re:Such a non-story

[Dahamma]

And how does that change the fact that they fucked up so many times in the past and don't need something this absurd right now?

Re:Such a non-story

[orzetto]

I agree it is going to hurt them in the public eye, what I am saying is that Ratzinger either does not understand it or does not care. His career indicates he likes to silence and discipline other people, not that he wants the Vatican to have a feel-good image.

Re:Such a non-story

[JAlexoi]

To be fair, the Inquisition over the last 100 years isn't the same thing as it was in the 15-18th centuries.

Re:Such a non-story

[0xdeadbeef]

And how does that change the fact that they fucked up so many times in the past and don't need something this absurd right now?

Does the fact that you said something this stupid today necessarily mean you are less likely to say something stupid tomorrow?

What the fuck, article headline?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Some religious nutjob wants him arrested" is a far fucking cry from "He's been charged." I want the author of the article headline to be charged with a crime too, doesn't mean it'll happen.

Re:What the fuck, article headline?

[sjames]

Yesterday (10th April,2012) Sanal received a phone call from a Police official of Juhu Police Station in Mumbai directing him to come to the said police station to face the charges and get arrested.

Seems fairly serious to me.

Re:What the fuck, article headline?

[DrXym]

I expect he will be arrested, stuck on trial and then the case will be laughed out of court. His high crime was offending the sensibilities of some religion by debunking a "miracle" with some primary school level science. The reason for the miracle is so laughably obvious that I am surprised anyone would be fooled by it.

Re:What the fuck, article headline?

[hackula]

I'm not too surprised. We have a long history of believing things just to be able to tell a neat story.

Re:What the fuck, article headline?

[sjames]

I don't know much about the law and processes in India, but charges, an arrest, and a trial, even a brief one sound far from pain free. Especially as a penalty for offending a priest.

Hey, it is india, a place

[singlevalley]

for every kind of crazy you can imagine. And no logic allowed...

Re:Hey, it is india, a place

[Anonymous Coward]

what a dumbass comment. the whole story is a non event. it's not in the mainstream news in india, nor on any channels. nutjobs exist in every country. and oh, are you going to tell me that there are states and universities planning to have creationist museums/ have it taught as a part of curriculum ? KKK and others are fictitious ? are you xenophobic sitting in the USA ?

India is a democracy much like USA. there is space for any lunacy, also, its a developing country just coming to terms with poverty and other issues. I'd bet every advanced / developed nations had such teething issues to deal with. with such a condescending/ sneering attitude... I begin to wonder how perfect is your country ?

Re:Hey, it is india, a place

[rve]

Logic and rationalism are French ideas. On that ground, I reject them utterly.

Re:Blashphemy???

[Securityemo]

Well, people in my country worship a man who was allegedly tortured to death over 2000 years ago. There are life-sized statues of the man, wearing only a rag, nailed to a cross in every temple. People wear smaller depictions of the torture instrument as a good-luck charm of sorts. Part of the rites involve drinking wine and eating a small piece of bread in the belief that it, in a spiritual sense, is the blood and flesh of this poor man.

Well, I guess it's a lot more intimidating than a jolly elephant man at least? Keeps the unwashed foreign tribes at a distance.

Oh great.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we're outsourcing our stupid, too.

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[epyT-R]

protoman had to fornicate somewhere..

Re:Fuck you, racist.

[epyT-R]

labeling someone a hater or fearer because he doesn't like or has a rational reason to not agree with something is not a counter argument, no matter what the political correctness thinktanks say.

Something to see here... RTFA

[whoever57]

Sanal received a phone call from a Police official of Juhu Police Station in Mumbai directing him to come to the said police station to face the charges and get arrested

I'm not clear on how instructions from the police to come in and be arrested are "nothing to see here"? Perhaps you could explain?

I have an idea

[slashmydots]

I think we should take anyone who constantly complains about America's politicians and laws and send them over to Mumbai.

Re:Blashphemy???

[Frankie70]

If you RTFA, you will know that it happened in a Christian church in Mumbai.

Re:Blashphemy???

[Shihar]

Dude if you think that worshiping elephant gods is fucked up, you should come to America and see some really crazy shit. In my country people worship some sort of zombie god/king. Their religious icon of choice is an ancient Roman execution and torture device. A bunch of sub-sects of this religion practice ritualized cannibalism and blood drinking. They think that their zombie god is going to come back some day and kill everyone, and they think that this is a good thing because it lets them get to their promised land or something equally crazy. I swear I am not making this shit up. These people are craaaazy here. I'll happily take some elephant worshipers over these psycho zombie worshiping cannibals.

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[MidnightBrewer]

Eventually you mature and leave the cradle. No guarantees for those who choose to remain behind in the cradle.

But...

[bmo]

The charge is entirely unconstitutional.

It's written in the Indian Constitution that people not only have the right to pursue the sciences, but have a duty to do so for the whole of society, under Article 51 A.

To wit: Article 51A(h) To develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform;

He's charged, but the charge won't stick even with a drunken lawyer.

He is roaming around free, because the police and the judge know the charge is bogus and a waste of everyone's time, but to do nothing would cause riots among the derp-infested.

--
BMO

Re:But...

[anilg]

Unfortunately it is also written in the Indian constitution that a specific override of freedom of speech and expression is that you may not hurt religious sentiments with this freedom (Article 19). This article is enforcable. A fundamental duty is not.

The law was written over 60 years ago when religious bickering and tensions were high, post-independance. They will hopefully be overridden with common law judements overtime (with what the definition of "hurting religious sentiments" is), but as it stands now a case of "hurting sentiments" is legally valid. I'm not sure what happened offline in the particular case, and will be looking into it's proceedings with interest.

Re:But...

[JAlexoi]

Wouldn't that preclude the reporting of facts/news about religious violence? I mean, reporting that religious group A has made an attack against religious group B definitely violates Art 19.

Re:But...

[stephanruby]

The charge is entirely unconstitutional.

Hopefully, this sentence carries more weight in India than it does in the US.

Re:But...

[anilg]

No.. that would be allowed. Largely that law has been used whenever someone attacks tenets of a religion, and it lies in the zone between freedom of religion, and freedom of speech.

Some more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_India

Re:But...

[AdamJS]

Couldn't he claim that he was actually defending the sanctity and integrity of the religion from charlitans and superstition?

Re:Blashphemy???

[Black Parrot]

Yeah, every religion is going to seem wacky to outsiders, but..

Everyone can clearly see how foolish everyone else's religion is. For some reason not many can turn the same critical eye on their own.

Re:Blashphemy???

[Black Parrot]

I'll happily take some elephant worshipers over these psycho zombie worshiping cannibals.

Dude, zombies are cool these days. Don't you ever watch television?

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't find this news on any indian news site (timesofindia, rediff, ibnlive). Where does this blog writer get his news from?

Those types of miracles

[Anonymous Coward]

Showy "miracles" that don't do anything are terrible, and they're not restricted to rural India either. Plenty of Christian holy places have some sort of useless crying statue or grilled cheesus. When a true miracle happens, it will be for a reason: healing someone or leading an enslaved people through the desert. God doesn't put on the Ritz for kicks.

Re:Those types of miracles

[shutdown -p now]

Orthodox Christians have a long-standing myth of a miracle where some particularly holy icons - especially of the Theotokos (Mary) - would sometimes "cry" with myrrh, which is taken to signify their holiness and healing powers.

In practice, icons do cry sometimes... but the reasons are much more mundane. Russian emperor Peter the Great was not a particularly pious man, but had a keen interests in science. As the story goes, when the Orthodox priests have proclaimed yet another miracle along those lines, he requested to come and see for himself, and was demonstrated an icon that was, indeed, slowly but visibly extruding liquid - smelling like oil - from its eyes; securely mounted on a wall, and lit by several candles. Upon inspecting it closely from the front, he demanded that the icon be taken off and handed over to him for detailed inspection, to which the priests objected, but were forced to comply. Once he had it, he proceeded to rip the wooden backside apart, and demonstrated to everyone present how the icon had hollow-outs with pin-size holes behind the eyes, filled with oil, which was extruded as it was expanding from being heated by candles lit in front of the icon.

After making sure that all priests present have seen the inner works of the "miracle", he proceeded to dictate an order on that spot which read thus: "I hereby order that Theotokos anywhere in Russian lands shall not cry; for if their eyes shed myrrh again, the priests' arses will shed blood". No new "miraculous" icons were observed in the country from that point until the end of his reign. ~

It's completely ridiculous!

[unreadepitaph]

It's not blasphemy if a guy goes and proves that there's a leaky pipe, what if a plumber had come onsite to fix it?
If he rocked up and said "Nah he's just a cunt" that'd probably be closer to the "hate speech" India's blasphemy laws refer to.
How can you expect your society to move forward if you allow people to be persecuted for not believing in God.

Plan: Register Atheism as a religious organisation, sue everyone who says God exists because we see it as "hate speech insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of any citizen with deliberate and malicious intention to outrage their religious feelings."

Re:Blashphemy???

[bmo]

These people worship cows and statues with elephant heads and statues of effeminate guys with six arms

Ganesha (the guy with the elephant head) is way cool. I prefer his style to the Zombie Jesus that the evangelical Christians push. What would probably curdle the milk in the evangelicals' coffee is that Ganesha is the patron of the arts, sciences, and letters, and the deva (god with a small g) of wisdom and intellect.

You know, a guy who if human, would appeal to the Slashdot crowd..

Keeping a little statue of Ganesha next to the servers at work is not necessarily a bad thing.

--
BMO

Blasphemy isn't a crime in India

[2br02b]

There is no crime of 'blasphemy' under Indian law, so I fail to see how this man could be charged with that. I couldn't find any mention of his arrest in the India media, although it might be that the blog referred to in TFA might have caught on to the news early. On the other hand it could be a matter of a group of 'rationalists' getting carried away after being threatened with arrest by some religious freaks.

Re:Blasphemy isn't a crime in India

[unreadepitaph]

It's on the list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law

Re:Blasphemy isn't a crime in India

[2br02b]

So is the US, what's your point?
The link says :
"Since Hinduism, India's dominant religion does not have the concept of blasphemy;[20][21] such laws are absent in tradition. In 1860, the British repealed blasphemy laws so that Christian missionaries could proselytize"
It goes on to mention hate speech laws applicable to religion, but that's quite different from blasphemy.

Re:Blasphemy isn't a crime in India

[unreadepitaph]

So is it saying that the laws are absent in tradition, but then the Britished repealed a law that didn't exist?

Re:Blashphemy???

[dodobh]

He wasn't charged with blasphemy. He was charged with offending religious beliefs (by a bunch of Christian nutjobs).

Only Fools and Horses did this

[Noughmad]

Drops of water on a holy statue? Sounds just like the Miracle of Peckham.

Re:Only Fools and Horses did this

[zAPPzAPP]

God made the water leak.

Re:Blashphemy???

[dead_cthulhu]

Actually, some denominations (such as the Catholics and, IIRC, the Orthodox) believe that it becomes flesh and blood in the literal sense.

Holy Fire

[werdnapk]

Here's the Holy Fire being exposed on Greek TV...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejnzXOxGX_M

Ignorance is bliss...

Hook on Opiates

[Taco Cowboy]

If I remember correctly, someone once said that religion is the opiate of the masses

I must clarify that I am not an atheist - I do believe that there is a ***Creator*** - I see the religions that are being practiced by the billions on this earth contribute nothing to human civilization

Of course, those who believe will tell you that their religion is the "true one", that their version of "true religion" is "peaceful"

Ultimately, religion is a sales / marketing campaign, on a global scale, and many millions depend on "GOD" for the bread that they bring home to feed their kids - that the better they sell "GOD" the more income they gonna get

That is why I am not surprised at all at the anger of those Hindu priests --- Their anger is not towards that guy who expose the "miracle", but rather, they know full well that their income gonna drastically drop after the expose

Re:Hook on Opiates

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think the Creator believes in a Creator?

Re:Hook on Opiates

[Barsteward]

he/she has to if as she/he had to be created... then its going to be a long list of creators of creators until point zero.... i don't know how the believers get around this one.... apart from self-delusion

Re:Hook on Opiates

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't say I don't agree with the general concept that organized religion has done some horrible things over the last 20,000 years or so but the statement that "religions have done nothing to contribute to civilization is stupid". Various Religions in various cultures have provided moral structures and codes of conduct that help define cooperative advantage of the species. Saying that is not useful to civilization is like saying laws don't help the species progress and that we'd be more advanced if it were every man for himself with the physically strong dominating the weak, enslaving large portions of the species and working toward the visions of the strong. On a more practical day to day level (though of less import to civilization as a whole) religions have often responded to immediate problems with programs to help out various members of a society.

Are religions which require the eschewing of truth and an acknowledgment that only they are correct the best solution to these problems? No, not in my opinion, but to say they've never done anything for civilization is hyperbole and just plain stupid.

Re:Hook on Opiates

[Barsteward]

actually Catholic priests, the ones that think child abuse is on the same level as having women priests.

Re:Hook on Opiates

[Air-conditioned cowh]

If I remember correctly, someone once said that religion is the opiate of the masses

In cases like this it's more like meth than opium!

Re:Hook on Opiates

[azalin]

not really, because having female priests would be unthinkable to the catholic church

Re:Hook on Opiates

[XDirtypunkX]

If the creators are omnipotent, technically you could have a circular creation, where a creator creates their own creator at a previous point in time with the impetus to create the other creator.

Re:Hook on Opiates

[Barsteward]

that is why... http://richarddawkins.net/articles/495770-official-vatican-does-compare-child-abuse-with-ordaining-women

Re:Hook on Opiates

[Reservoir Penguin]

That's pretty harsh. I'm an atheist but will be the first to admit that man-made religions contributed to art and philosophy.

Re:Hook on Opiates

[Boscrossos]

Who's cherrypicking now? Horrible things have happened in the name of religion, but then, horrible things have happened in the name of science too. Should we get rid of that as well?

Re:Hook on Opiates

[WrongSizeGlass]

Which morals would those be? Promoting genocide, misogyny, stoning people to death, slavery etc etc? Those are the morals of the bible which are cherry picked "out" of the morals espoused by christians

Which morals? Thou shall not kill for one.

Re:Hook on Opiates

[WrongSizeGlass]

that is why... http://richarddawkins.net/articles/495770-official-vatican-does-compare-child-abuse-with-ordaining-women

I guess the first of those two dominoes fell, so when is the second one?

Re:Hook on Opiates

[Barsteward]

the religions didn't but the humans did, they would have probably done the same if they weren't religious which is something seem not to realise. they were inspired by the fear of not getting to heaven

Re:Hook on Opiates

[yotto]

Yo dawg, I heard you liked creators, so I created a creator to create creators who created their own creators, so your creator could be created by a creator.
 
/sorry
//creator

Re:Hook on Opiates

[Opportunist]

Pretty sure he does. But I'm also fairly sure he lost any faith in his ground personnel.

Re:Hook on Opiates

[Opportunist]

with a pointer to a pointer to a pointer to a pointer to a void pointer...

Re:Hook on Opiates

[Opportunist]

No doubt. But if you ask me, the price was way too steep.

Re:Hook on Opiates

[Reservoir Penguin]

Many were inspired by the beauty of Heaven and Biblical stories as they imagined them. This is especially evident in "naive" art created by basically peasants to decorate local churches (I'm talking about Orthodox christian art I'm familiar with).

Re:Hook on Opiates

[DrXym]

I think it more likely that moral structures and codes of conduct are inherent to human nature and then religion comes along and proclaims them to be commandments handed down by some supernatural being. Religion is just an extension of tribalism basically.

Re:Hook on Opiates

[coastwalker]

"though shalt not kill" is another brain dead out of date and evil religious law.

Now we are surrounded by brain dead bodies on life support systems or worse people who are in unimaginable pain being kept alive for the moral sensibilities of religious zealots. In addition we have a planet dying of over exploitation, countries over-run with starving children all because birth control is regarded as killing.

The religious meme has stolen mans spiritual instincts and put them to use paying for churches which cause suffering and wars. I don't think that we have perfect institutions to create secular law but they are a major step forward from stupid religious law.

Re:Hook on Opiates

[BlueStrat]

last time i checked science wasn't and has never been a religion.

Hogwash.

Three letters for you.

AGW

It's turned into a Holy War where the main casualty has been Science.

Strat

Re:Hook on Opiates

[samkass]

Of course, there is a correlation between attending church and living longer, so there is science to back up why religion seems to have been a part of every human civilization in history, and why in the absence of religion humans will create one.

Re:Hook on Opiates

[Dcnjoe60]

If the creators are omnipotent, technically you could have a circular creation, where a creator creates their own creator at a previous point in time with the impetus to create the other creator.

That would only work in a closed system. Most religions view their deity as being outside the system (super-natural). In the Jewish/Christian/Islam view, God always existed and never was created. God then created the universe, which created time itself. But since God existed prior to time existing, there is not need for God to be created as there was no "before" God (just as there was no "before" the big bang).

Whether one believes in all of that or not is for personal decisions, however, the notion of a circular creation, at least in the major religions is not needed, and actually prohibited.

Re:Hook on Opiates

[Dcnjoe60]

Which morals would those be? Promoting genocide, misogyny, stoning people to death, slavery etc etc? Those are the morals of the bible which are cherry picked "out" of the morals espoused by christians

How do those compare to the morals throughout history of peoples who were not christian? In other words, are those traits specific to christians or to humanity in general for the time periods involved?

Re:Hook on Opiates

[lee1]

What "hindu priests" are you talking about?

Re:Hook on Opiates

[Barsteward]

yes, but that is at odds with Gods wish for genocide, stoning people to death etc - are you saying god is like Mitt Romney and cant make up his/her mind?

Re:Hook on Opiates

[morgauxo]

Hindu priests?

Re:Hook on Opiates

[Lobachevsky]

You do realize it was Catholic priests, and the statue was of Jesus? The summary is misleading, instead of the summary writing "When a statue in Mumbai ... The entire investigation was caught on tape. The priests were outraged and demanded an apology." it should have written "When a Jesus statue in a city ... The entire investigation was caught on tape. The Catholic priests were outraged and demanded an apology." For some reason the submitter decided to point out the city name, but not the statue or priests.

Re:Hook on Opiates

[nschubach]

...and what makes our creator so spiteful as to make us non-omnipotent?

Re:Hook on Opiates

[nschubach]

Well... you can't be wrong all the time. But one would assume an omnipotent being would be right all the time.

Re:Hook on Opiates

[kilfarsnar]

If I remember correctly, someone once said that religion is the opiate of the masses

I must clarify that I am not an atheist - I do believe that there is a ***Creator*** - I see the religions that are being practiced by the billions on this earth contribute nothing to human civilization

Of course, those who believe will tell you that their religion is the "true one", that their version of "true religion" is "peaceful"

Ultimately, religion is a sales / marketing campaign, on a global scale, and many millions depend on "GOD" for the bread that they bring home to feed their kids - that the better they sell "GOD" the more income they gonna get

That is why I am not surprised at all at the anger of those Hindu priests --- Their anger is not towards that guy who expose the "miracle", but rather, they know full well that their income gonna drastically drop after the expose

Yeah, basically. I too believe that there is some consciousness or entity that created the universe. I believe he/she (probably neither) is still with us. But I have the humility to know that it is only my belief. I cannot prove it, and I don't expect anyone else to believe it. I am open to changing my mind, as I have done so in the past.

But all of these religious leaders and their followers claim to have the ultimate truth! How can they possibly know? And yet their identity and world view is so enmeshed in this faith they become quite defensive and threatened when it is shown to be the mythology that it is. They need a good dose of humility and perspective. But like you said, that doesn't keep the donations coming in.

Re:Hook on Opiates

[kilfarsnar]

you've missed the point completely. the subject i was commenting was the so called "morals" of religion. last time i checked science wasn't and has never been a religion.

Though science is not a religion, there are those that take it to that level. There are those that think that if something has not been understood through the scientific method, it is invalid. This belief has fostered a literalism in society. If something can't be quantified, measured, and repeatably tested, it is wrong or does not exist. This reflects a chauvinism that science is the one true way of interpreting and understanding the world around us.

Having said that, it is obvious to me that the scientific method is an extremely valuable tool for figuring out how things work, and how they can be manipulated to work differently or in combinations. It has given us an increasingly accurate understanding of the system in which we live. But it doesn't have all the answers, and I think an honest scientist would acknowledge that.

Re:Hook on Opiates

[kilfarsnar]

Which morals would those be? Promoting genocide, misogyny, stoning people to death, slavery etc etc? Those are the morals of the bible which are cherry picked "out" of the morals espoused by christians

Which morals? Thou shall not kill for one.

I've always found that commandment interesting in its interpretation. It is quite stark; it says Thou Shalt Not Kill. It doesn't say "except in cases of self-defense, or war". But show me a Christian or Jew that will not add those qualifiers in, even though they are not in the commandment. You can't!

Re:Hook on Opiates

[SuperQ]

Or capitol punishment.

This is a generalization, but I have found the stronger the religious belief a person has, the more they will let cognitive dissonance turn them into a hypocrite.

Re:Hook on Opiates

[kurzweilfreak]

Right, because until Moses came along with his stone tablets (the first or second set) everyone thought that it was ok to go around killing anyone you wanted for no reason at all and there were no laws at all against murder.

Re:Hook on Opiates

[c 0xFF]

If you're a mormon, the answer is yes. It's creators all the way down.

Re:Hook on Opiates

[Rakarra]

"though shalt not kill" is another brain dead out of date and evil religious law.

Really, it was 'thou shalt not murder.' But one could very easily make the case that keeping someone alive for months through artificial life support systems is a denial of God's will, at least if they would have died naturally if a machine wasn't keeping them alive. >_>

Re:Hook on Opiates

[ProfessionalCookie]

eval()

Re:Hook on Opiates

[Gabrill]

Hmm, so being in the "in crowd" isn't enough to promote a healthier, longer life all by itself? There must be an imaginary sky friend involved?

Not really

[SmallFurryCreature]

It is a very old tactic by the religious establishment, don't question us and we won't question you. Basically, you are free from religious control, unless you question the religious control. You are a free person, unless you try to exercise your freedom.

It has been the way to keep groups down for millenia, Jews are a famous example. Countries that claim to have been tolerant really just operated with "Don't be noticeable and we won't notice you to much".

The Catholic church was fine with evolution, they didn't push for creationism UNTIL Catholics who had accepted evolution made more sense then genesis started to think "wait a minute, if genesis is a fairy tale, then why is any of the rest true and why then is it required for me to remain silent about this priest in my ass?". Creationism and the attack on science didn't start until the church started to loose power because of it. In the 70's, people were still balancing the two. Proof? Their were plenty of scandals back then but people kept quiet because while they accepted evolution, they still believed as well. Enough to not risk upsetting the church. That has changed and the church NEEDS power. Without control, they are nothing. After all, you can talk to god anywhere, why pay for churches and priests when god is everywhere or nowhere?

The church isn't anti-evolution. It is anti-critical thinking. Critical thinkers wonder why the pope has a super luxerous seat on an airplane that could be carrying medicine. Just why gold is needed on a cross for a carpenter. And why people to poor to feed their kids should pay for it all. Can't have that.

The renaissance was another age the church lost a lot of power in because people started thinking. The post-war new age thinking (In Holland, ont-zuiling, the end of the columns of power, where your faith defined who you where and you trusted your boss, doctor and politicians without question) cripped the church even more, now they are determined not to become totally irrelevant. Because the most dangerous idea a church faces is a religious person who realizes that Jezus never founded a church. You can believe without ever going into a church or being buggered by a priest. That is scary as hell to the establishment, those kind of people might even believe you can love your country and STILL question it! It is no accident the religious zealots and the right wingers go hand in hand. Romney and co want you to believe, so you won't think and question. Not just god and the church but the free market, the wars, wallstreet bailouts. Breed, have lots of kids who can't afford to be picky about jobs so Ann Romney can afford a domestic while she bitches about her struggle as a super rich stay at home mom.

Or do you think the right like people having less children who can afford higher education and grow up to be thinking, questioning citizens? Things were so much better when people had a dozen kids who could be send of into domestic service for whatever usage the rich saw fit. And if a girl then inevitably got pregnant by a rich landlord after rape, well, that just ensured the supply of cheap labor would continue.

A fool thinks that those who desire power desire slaves. Far better is a serve, a man who thinks he is free but forges his own chains. Religion and the American dream forges the best chains.

Re:Not really

[shutdown -p now]

The Catholic church was fine with evolution, they didn't push for creationism

Catholic Church pushes for creationism? Since when? Got any references?

Re:Not really

[Barsteward]

"The church isn't anti-evolution. It is anti-critical thinking."

it's anti-thinking, critical thinking is a step too far. Thinking is the danger to faith.

Re:Not really

[JAlexoi]

Well.... Technically they do. But they are most definitely not anti-evolution. In fact, they even accept the idea of extra terrestrials and generally accept that the old testament isn't really a historically accurate account.

Re:Not really

[JAlexoi]

Because the most dangerous idea a church faces is a religious person who realizes that Jezus never founded a church.

That and only that is what the Catholic church is willing to fight. Everything else you attribute to Catholic church is the extremism of American protestants.

Re:Not really

[Reservoir Penguin]

The Catholic church now officially accepts the Scientific model of the world almost completely including the Big bang and origin of species through Evolution. To mainstream Christians American version of Christianity now seems like a different religion from another planet, only superficially sharing rituals with the rest of the Christian churches.

Re:Not really

[Anonymous Coward]

The Catholic church was fine with evolution, they didn't push for creationism

Catholic Church pushes for creationism? Since when? Got any references?

I believe what you just quoted says they do not push for it.

Re:Not really

[Aceticon]

Actually the recent push for creationism seems to have come almost entirelly from born-again type sects mostly in the US and some developing countries with mainly christian populations.

As far as I'm aware there is no push for creationism in Europe, not from Catholics, Protestants or Orthodox Christians. Some imported Christian sects (the kind that do public rituals of faith healing and banishing of bad spirits) do preach creationism, but those are a tiny minority, concentrated on the uneducated and downtrodden).

In that sense, especially in Western Europe, education has created a generation (actually, two generations by now) of critical thinkers, where even those who do have religious beliefs are not prone to blindly believe what the men of the cloth tell them.

My impression in Europe of crossing paths with people that are believers is that Religion has become far more a personal thing, a belief born from the inside rather than a set of ritualised social events.

Re:Not really

[TheDarkMaster]

Very, very well said, sir.

Re:Not really

[hackula]

Well.... Technically they do.

Nope. John Paul II believed in evolution. They have not pushed creationism in any sense for a while now (circa Vatican II). They do not assert either position and pretty much keep a "leave science to science" attitude. I am personally an atheist, but I have found catholics to be fairly science-friendly, especially compared to the rest these days. If only they could also be women-friendly, gay-friendly, etc.

Re:Not really

[Hatta]

The Catholic church now officially accepts the Scientific model of the world almost completely including the Big bang and origin of species through Evolution.

But condoms still contribute to the spread of AIDS. Honestly, I'd rather they still be pushing geocentrism. That doesn't kill anyone.

Re:Not really

[hey!]

This disagreement is really just a quibble. What is usually meant by "creationism" is the belief in the historical truth of Genesis. By that definition the Catholic is certainly not creationist. I once knew a guy at MIT who joined the Jesuits and became the head of the Vatican observatory. I've followed his career over the years and he's often invited by the press and media to comment on a variety of science questions, and creationism. He regards creationism essentially as crypto-paganism.

Now if you choose to re-define "creationism" as believing that the universe was created by God, then the Catholic Church's beliefs would certainly qualify. However that is an intrinsically untestable hypothesis (a positivist would claim is is meaningless), and therefore neither contradicts nor agrees with science. Creationism in its usual sense disagrees with science.

Re:Not really

[shutdown -p now]

Yes, I probably shouldn't have cut the quote so early. If you read GGP's post, it's clear that he was saying that Catholic Church used to be pro-evolution, but then changed to be creationist recently.

Re:Not really

[shutdown -p now]

Please actually read the post to which I'm replying. Here is the salient part:

The Catholic church was fine with evolution, they didn't push for creationism UNTIL Catholics who had accepted evolution made more sense then genesis started to think "wait a minute, if genesis is a fairy tale, then why is any of the rest true and why then is it required for me to remain silent about this priest in my ass?". Creationism and the attack on science didn't start until the church started to loose power because of it. In the 70's, people were still balancing the two. Proof? Their were plenty of scandals back then but people kept quiet because while they accepted evolution, they still believed as well. Enough to not risk upsetting the church. That has changed and the church NEEDS power. Without control, they are nothing. After all, you can talk to god anywhere, why pay for churches and priests when god is everywhere or nowhere?

Re:Not really

[shutdown -p now]

As far as I'm aware there is no push for creationism in Europe, not from Catholics, Protestants or Orthodox Christians.

There's certainly a creationist revival in the Russian Orthodox Church these days, with school textbooks of "orthodox biology" explaining how evolution is a sham etc. It's not an official church position or part of the dogma (i.e. you don't have to believe it to be considered Orthodox), and the top hierarchy does not openly support it, but they condone its popularity among rank and file priesthood.

Re:Not really

[Reservoir Penguin]

Unfortunate, but abstinence will infact prevent most cases of HIV infection, that's a scientific fact, tried and tested personally. It's not Catholics problem that many can not keep dicks in their pants.

Re:Not really

[Hatta]

It's not Catholics problem that many can not keep dicks in their pants.

It's the Catholics fault for failing to understand this reality and adapt their social programs accordingly. If their desire is to save lives, then they should be guided by what actually works. Since they are not, it's pretty clear that they don't give a shit what happens to people.

Re:Not really

[shutdown -p now]

Of course, we could add to this the circumstantial evidence that you'll be hard pressed to find a quote where any church official says "Genesis is false, its just a metaphor...look to science to answer questions about the nature of the Earth"

Is Saint Augustine a high ranking enough Church official to you?

"It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation.

With the scriptures it is a matter of treating about the faith. For that reason, as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about these matters in our books, or hear of the same from those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or predictions of the scriptures. In short, it must be said that our authors knew the truth about the nature of the skies, but it was not the intention of the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, to teach men anything that would not be of use to them for their salvation."

That was written around 400 AD, by the way. If it ain't good enough, how about a Pope?

"Cosmogony and cosmology have always aroused great interest among peoples and religions. The Bible itself speaks to us of the origin of the universe and its make-up, not in order to provide us with a scientific treatise, but in order to state the correct relationships of man with God and with the universe. Sacred Scripture wishes simply to declare that the world was created by God, and in order to teach this truth it expresses itself in the terms of the cosmology in use at the time of the writer. The Sacred Book likewise wishes to tell men that the world was not created as the seat of the gods, as was taught by other cosmogonies and cosmologies, but was rather created for the service of man and the glory of God. Any other teaching about the origin and make-up of the universe is alien to the intentions of the Bible, which does not wish to teach how heaven was made but how one goes to heaven."

Catholics are creationists only in a sense that they believe, no matter what the precise arrangement that led to the present day of affairs - Big Bang, evolution etc - it was all originally planned by God and executed according to that divine plan. Because this is not a falsifiable hypothesis, it is, of course, not science - but it also does not in any way contradicts science, unlike evangelical creationism.

Re:Not really

[Cederic]

Wait, what? Centuries of oppression, greed, forced ignorance, brainwashing, torture, child abuse and bigotry is down to American protestants? Even before Christianity reached America?

Ongoing misogyny, child abuse, bigotry and taught ignorance is down to Amerian protestants, even in Brazil, Italy, Ireland and other Catholic countries?

Face it, Catholicism is pretty fucking evil even without US help.

Re:Not really

[Rakarra]

This disagreement is really just a quibble. What is usually meant by "creationism" is the belief in the historical truth of Genesis. By that definition the Catholic is certainly not creationist. I once knew a guy at MIT who joined the Jesuits and became the head of the Vatican observatory. I've followed his career over the years and he's often invited by the press and media to comment on a variety of science questions, and creationism.

Now if you choose to re-define "creationism" as believing that the universe was created by God, then the Catholic Church's beliefs would certainly qualify.

In fact, Stephen Hawking remarked that the introduction of the Big Bang Theory and the scientific evidence to support it was met with elation by religious scholars because they felt that this was scientific evidence for the moment of creation.

Re:Not really

[JAlexoi]

Creationism is not only anti-evolution.
If you distill those unsubstantiated beliefs to anti-evolution, you're holding it wrong.

Re:Not really

[JAlexoi]

We are talking about the present. Catholic church is pretty damn corrupt, however it's generally not as crazy as the current crop of American protestants.
Just take Mormons as an example.

Re:Not really

[Coren22]

The Catholic Church believes that nothing in Evolution conflicts with God being a creator. The Catholic Church is where science came from; there were a few disagreements where certain popes were unwilling to accept scientific results, but for the most part, Catholicism is willing to accept scientific findings.

Re:Not really

[Coren22]

Except if you leave the Church of Scientology.

Super (James) Randi

[mailuefterl]

to the rescue!!

Re:Blashphemy???

[dadioflex]

So Christianity is every bit as nutty? You don't say!

The point is that regardless of what the evangelicals might wish, you can't get arrested for calling them out on their shit in the US. This makes the US "better" than India on this score, regardless of how equally ridiculous the respective "common" religion is.

Well there you have it, your new national motto. "The US - currently better than India". You go guys!

What gets me about this is that there ARE a bunch of different faiths in India, and they're trying, officially at least and in parts some better than others, to get along by studiously ignoring each other's mutually exclusive beliefs. So a sceptic comes along and disproves a miracle, IN HIS OPINION, which is rude but within the scope of his unprotected belief system. I don't understand how a Christian system based on faith can really ever take offence at someone poking holes in a local miracle, or the entire canon even. I genuinely mean this - if you're Christian and you're letting someone bamboozle you with logic and facts then it shows a profound lack of faith and a misunderstanding of the teachings of Jesus if your first reaction is anger. If those Indian Christians had simply blessed the sceptic and agreed to disagree there'd be no issue. The people with REAL faith could believe in whatever they want, and the people with actual FACTS can be smug in their knowledge and the impending empty soulless non-existence they have to look forward to when they die. Everybody's happy.

Your life is going to suck

[SmallFurryCreature]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_inventions_and_discoveries#Medicine

But luckily, not for very long.

Oxygen by Antoine Lavoisier in 1778.

How can you denounce something when you can't breathe?

Re:Your life is going to suck

[shutdown -p now]

Four classical elements worked well enough for Aristotle, yet he didn't suffocate. We don't need your fancy shmancy "oxygen" here for that.

Anyway, oxygen is a liberal plot to convince people that a mythical substance they call "CO2" actually exists and is a so-called "greenhouse gas" contributing to "anthropogenic global warming" (just stop and think: did you ever read anything about that in the Bible? no? see!), all for the sake of occupying U.S. by UN forces and instituting state atheism. Support the Second Amendment today before it's too late!

The stupidity of religion strikes again!

[Anonymous Coward]

If any of that mumbo jumbo was real, they wouldn't need human laws to defend it. Insult a living god? Get fsked up. No divine wrath? Obviously either there are no gods, (duh,) or the gods don't care. If they don't care, why should you? However, gods, (including Alaha or whatever, Jaway, or whatever, and "God" the no-name Christian BS deity), faeries, demons, genie's, ghosts, spirits, leper-cons, quexelcotals, (or whatever,) unicorns, basilisks, manticores, ogres, trolls, etc., ad nauseum, DO NOT EXIST!!! Use your brains, people!

End rant.

PS: don't bother correcting my spelling. I know some of these words are misspelled. Fact is, it's not worth my time to look up the names of these made-up bullspit characters from archaic, crappy fiction.

A better question...

[Anonymous Coward]

How is it that as a rule religions seem to think that their creator is so narcissistic that he/she/it would want/need/demand that people worship he/she/it?

Re:A better question...

[Grishnakh]

Didn't you see the Star Trek episode about the Greek gods?

Re:A better question...

[JosKarith]

I've always wondered why an omniescent deity would require open worship. If God knows all then surely it knows how you feel without you having to say anything.

Re:A better question...

[WrongSizeGlass]

How is it that as a rule religions seem to think that their creator is so narcissistic that he/she/it would want/need/demand that people worship he/she/it?

My assessment of this has always been that if man was created in God's image, and man requires the worship and admiration of his peers, then God must also.

Re:A better question...

[yotto]

My assessment of this has always been that if man was created in God's image, and man requires the worship and admiration of his peers, then God must also.

Great. He has the option to give us omnipotence or vanity and He chooses vanity.

Re:A better question...

[queBurro]

I make the imaginary kids in my imaginary classroom sing songs because it makes them happy

Re:A better question...

[Opportunist]

C'mon, be honest, if you were him, what would you give to your subjects?

Re:A better question...

[Lurker2288]

I've thought of it in economics terms. Like, for an example, take engagement rings. If you're proposing to a woman, you know you love her, and she knows you love her. A ring is just a way of showing, with cash on the barrelhead, that you're serious about her. You're paying a substantial cost up front to show you mean business. Prayer and ritual is the same thing--god doesn't just want you to love him. He wants you to love him until it costs you something.

Kind of makes you wonder why a supposedly higher being would be such a narcissistic crybaby, doesn't it? Even if he did exist I wouldn't want to kiss his ass.

Re:A better question...

[happy_place]

who's to say omnipotence isn't the ultimate reward? The question in this life is whether or not we could be trustworthy of such a gift. personally that's where my religious struggle gets interesting. All this stuff about miracles and controlling others who decide to believe otherwise is a distraction from the real point of a religious existence. Learn first to control yourself, then worry about what everyone else is doing.

Re:A better question...

[Dcnjoe60]

I've always wondered why an omniescent deity would require open worship. If God knows all then surely it knows how you feel without you having to say anything.

Who says that an omniscient deity requires open worship? It is also quite possible that said deity doesn't require such worship but it does fill some need in the human psyche.

Re:A better question...

[RicktheBrick]

Suppose there is a god and you chose not to make him happy, what have you lost? Everything! Suppose there is a god and you chose to make him happy, what have you gained? Everything! Suppose there isn't a god and you chose to make the non existent god happy, what have you lost? Nothing! Suppose there isn't a god and you chose not to make the non existent god happy, what have you gained? Nothing! It is like betting a billion dollars that the world is going to end tomorrow. If you are right you will not be there to collect and if you are wrong you will lose the billion dollars. There are so many questions that can not be answered if there isn't a god and there are so many questions that can not be answered if there is a god. So the question just gives me a headache and I try to think about it.

Re:A better question...

[Dcnjoe60]

How is it that as a rule religions seem to think that their creator is so narcissistic that he/she/it would want/need/demand that people worship he/she/it?

My assessment of this has always been that if man was created in God's image, and man requires the worship and admiration of his peers, then God must also.

Your logic would be faulty then. Man also masturbates, does that mean God must, too?

Re:A better question...

[nusuth]

Your calculation is correct only if you value your life and your choices as "nothing." For a moment, image that this might be your *only* life, you will be able to see that not being able to live as you wish is actually losing *everything.*

Re:A better question...

[prod-you]

Everything! Suppose there isn't a god and you chose to make the non existent god happy, what have you lost? Nothing!

Do you know how many people have died for religion?

Re:A better question...

[Vokkyt]

And what if that god is inferior to another? Or the antithesis of the true god? What if the true god actually stands for many things you disagree with.

Pascal's wager is a cute little thought, but it doesn't really stand as a foundation for faith.

Re:A better question...

[SuperQ]

And similar to the above post, engagement rings are an extreme marketing blitz on the world. A tradition that was invented by corporations who wanted to sell things.

If I wanted to show a potential spouse how much I cared, I would probably do something like take them on a trip somewhere. But then again, to me, actions are more valuable than objects.

Re:A better question...

[meerling]

I believe those rings are a more modern interpretation of the old rules and traditions about purchasing your wives. It's just in the modern version, you give it to the wife instead of the father. At least that's what I heard in sociology classes the few times someone brought up the whole thing about engagement/wedding rings.

Oh, and if you want to argue this, go find an anthropologist or sociologist because I don't really care.

Re:A better question...

[xerxesVII]

Open worship is a primary vector for the transmission of the meme. Shared experience solidifies the meme and helps it survive longer than it would if adherents focus on it in private. A meme requires this shared experience among as large and diverse a sample as possible or else it will die.

Re:A better question...

[Rakarra]

That only makes sense if said God isn't aware of your lack of faith.

You can only worship a god you actually believe in. Anything else is false. Faith must come before worship.

Re:A better question...

[Rakarra]

My assessment of this has always been that if man was created in God's image, and man requires the worship and admiration of his peers, then God must also.

Ah yes! It makes sense now, the reason for the phrase "God works in mysterious, often dickish ways."

Re:A better question...

[Rakarra]

Your logic would be faulty then. Man also masturbates, does that mean God must, too?

When I was young, I was told that it was raining because God was peeing on us.

Re:A better question...

[mcgrew]

Death is not a penalty. It is a certainty. Everyone dies. Everyone. Would you rather die for a good cause, or from cancer?

Re:A better question...

[mcgrew]

Look at it this way -- you are to God what the software you write is to you. To your software, you are omnipotent. YOU control your computer.

Do you want your software to have complete control over your computer, or do you want your software to do what YOU want IT to do?

Re:A better question...

[Xcruciate]

Hey Rumsfeld, I didn't know you were a Slashdot reader!

Re:A better question...

[cortesoft]

You describe Pascal's Wager (That you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by believing in God, while you have everything to lose and nothing to gain by not believing in God). This can be a compelling argument to someone who already believes in God, or is in a culture where there is only really one choice of religion.

However, the argument is a poor one. An unmentioned premise of the argument is that there is only one possible God to choose to believe in or not; of course, we know this is not true. There are countless different Gods that people choose to believe in. There are the major religions, and all of the thousands of offshoots. Many of those beliefs include the idea that God HATES it if you worship the wrong God (think the First Commandment).

Because of this, you have to include in your calculation that you choose the WRONG God to believe in, and in doing so you actually piss him off more than if you had not believed at all. Maybe God exists, but his REAL desire is for no one to worship him, and worshipping him is what pisses him off.

There are infinite possible Gods, so the argument that you should just choose to believe in one of them because you have nothing to lose doesn't hold water.

Re:A better question...

[RockDoctor]

If God knows all then surely it knows how you feel without you having to say anything.

Which neatly exposes the fact that the purpose of prayer is nothing to do with any deity, but is to detect dissension and independent thought in the congregation. The priests know who their enemies are and need tools like this to check who is complying with their orders.

It's mind control. Like the rest of religion.

Re:A better question...

[RockDoctor]

Your logic would be faulty then. Man also masturbates, does that mean God must, too?

There are several cosmogonies in which the creator god forms the Earth from his ejaculate.

As a geologist, I find this implausible.

Re:A better question...

[JosKarith]

My engagement ring to my wife was a heart-shaped star sapphire I bought loose, set in silver by a friend who is a trainee silversmith. Cheap(ish), beautiful and utterly unique. Spend 3 months salary on a store-bought piece of crap? Screw that.
I always thought that the engagement ring was traditionally a "down payment" on a promise to marry - almost like a security deposit against you getting cold feet.

Re:A better question...

[bistromath007]

Yeah, but if one of the imaginary kids doesn't want to sing because his imaginary family isn't part of the First Imaginary Church of queBurro, does he get spanked and sent to the imaginary corner?

Re:A better question...

[roc97007]

Terry Pratchett stipulates that it is belief that creates the god being believed in, and the strength of the god correlates directly to the strength of the belief. (See most of his discworld novels, especially "Small Gods".) Therefore, a god would naturally want to increase the number of believers. It's as good an explanation as any.

Re:A better question...

[Boronx]

What if god is made happy by you not believing in him? What if there is no God and not believing in him is the only way to get to Heaven?

Re:A better question...

[Soluzar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_wager It has indeed been said. I don't find it compelling though.

Re:A better question...

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Because an omniscient deity would be aware of the herd mentality of humans. People worshiping openly would lead to more worshipers.

Of course, being omnipotent, you could personally appear to everyone, and say "Hey you, worship me, but don't tell anyone."

Re:A better question...

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Complete indifference.

In related news?

[pbjones]

how are the two articles related? because they happened on the same planet? or because religion was involved? (two different religions)

Praise the lord

[daktari]

and pass the ammo...

Re:Blashphemy???

[FrootLoops]

You're referring to transubstantiation. It's really convoluted, and I'm not Catholic, but the opening of the Wiki article implies the physical attributes of the wine and bread aren't altered, even though the "substance" changes to that of Christ's flesh and blood (no idea what that means). My crude opinion is that they made up an invisible attribute so their crazy theory can't be proven wrong by a simple autopsy.

Re:Fuck you, racist.

[Scarletdown]

May Allah/God/Buddha bless you son.

And likewise, may Eagle's mighty wings carry you on your journey to new heights of peace and wisdom (or something like that). :)

Re:Hopefully you're kidding...

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean seriously, why would God create a brilliant analytical brain, only to shun its use?

Probably the same reason He created fossils for dinosaurs that never actually existed.

Can't tell if you're joking or not, so I'll assume you're not and ask the question your remark brings to mind:

What is, all other arguments aside, more likely?

1. Ethereal, magical faerie being dreams the universe into reality by pure force of will. Creates untold billions of stars and almost certainly as many individual planets in a "day" or whatever, then spends about five more working on JUST ONE. Then, buries bones of fake creatures he/she/it made up that never really lived to fool people thousands of years later... all to make it so people would believe in him/her/it by faith alone, because apparently that's important, even though in the books that are (in the case of two or three major sets of superstitious beliefs,) he/she/it did things deliberately, RIGHT IN FRONT OF EVERYONE TO MAKE SURE THEY BELIEVED... because he/she/it can't mess with "free will" for some reason, because I guess that just wouldn't be fair, or something, even though it's documented in that very book that he/she/it HAS IN FACT INTERFERED WITH FREE WILL BEFORE!

(Oh, a big BTW on dinosaurs: how come nowhere in "the bible" does it mention dinosaurs? How come Eshmuckial 44:5353 does it not state: and God told me he created many extremely large, fake creatures' bones for archeologists to find three thousand years from now, just to mess with them!"? How come "god" doesn't ever seem to know anything the authors of his "book" didn't know at the time it was written? The mathematical constant "pi" is fairly important. How come "god" never mentions it? Hmm? Oh, right... he wanted us to 'figure it out' ourselves. So things people didn't know at the time, 'god' wants us to figure out. Can you not hear yourselves, apologists for Judeo/Muslo/Christian-o mythology? It sounds like you're talking about Harry Potter!)

2. Giant reptiles stalked the Earth once, died, were buried, and became partially fossilized through processes that are easily demonstrable as not only possible, but in the right situations INEVITABLE. Then later, a bunch of really advanced primates, while not yet technologically advanced enough to have mastered those tools needed to figure out what happened in the past without being told, follow some line of BS someone told them because, hang it all, they couldn't come up with a better line of pure dreck to explain why things were as they were, and given sufficient passion, the ravings of lunatics CAN seem persuasive, even if they were lying (likely) or stoned on some post-neolithic mind altering drug (like 'shrooms, for instance, or opium, or BOOZE) which, when you add the notion of an evil thing (responsible for all bad things that happen, making the character in the story almost universally hated) will try to convince everyone that the BS story they've been handed is false, and that they're to kill anyone who says such a thing...

ONE of these explanations requires magic, and other things not provable. The other is based on stuff we have ACTUALLY DUG UP OUT OF THE GROUND! One is obviously fake, being less substantial than the mist, and one is real enough to clobber some moron over the head with. Take your pick.

Re:Blashphemy???

[Barsteward]

This was a catholic problem not a Hindu problem. RTFA a bit, maybe

Re:Blashphemy???

[Scarletdown]

They have millions of gods, for Vishnu's sake...

Fixed that for you. :)

Re:Blashphemy???

[KeensMustard]

Indeed - atheism being the classic example of this

Of course they want him arrested

[DrXym]

I'm sure their "miracle" is extremely profitable. They can't make money when someone is saying it's just water seepage. Obviously the person who investigated and solved this pathetic miracle is a blasphemer and must be denounced.

Re:Hopefully - HA!

[Grishnakh]

You're confusing your Christians. The young-earth Creationists are fundamentalists, not Catholic. The Catholics may be many things (cough*child molesters*cough), but they're not fundamentalists like that. Catholicism takes the Bible, and adds a bunch of extra stuff they call "revealed knowledge" and a lot of other odd practices and ideas, like transubstantiation (the idea that the crackers are the real body of Christ), confession, the idea that people can't talk directly to God but must instead use a Priest as an intermediary (this I think was dropped in more recent history), praying to Saints to ask them to talk to God on your behalf, etc.; the Protestants, when they broke off, largely rejected all this extra stuff; they have varied beliefs, but I don't believe any of them believe in transubstantiation. The fundamentalists take it even further and proclaim the Bible as the complete, inerrant word of God and that it must be read literally. Then of course there's the Mormons, who believe in the Bible the way the regular Protestants do for the most part, but then they add a whole new book about Jesus coming to visit a bunch of fictional civilizations in the Americas before Europeans got there, and then they added another book (Abraham) about how God lives on the planet Kolob, and how good Mormons will become gods when they die and get their own planets to rule over.

Anyway, as far as I know, the only Christians that believe the earth is 6000 years old and that dinosaurs either never existed, or co-existed with humans and were wiped out in Noah's flood, are all of the extreme fundamentalist variety. While these sects are rare in the rest of the Christian world, here in the USA they're a large and fast-growing number.

Re:Fuck you, racist.

[zero.kalvin]

I was being sarcastic. Since many ( but not all ) religious people would have told him instead to go burn in hell.

Re:Blashphemy???

[clickclickdrone]

>It's not a serious religion

As opposed to the ones that *really* make sense?

Re:Blashphemy???

[houghi]

Everybody is an atheist. Some just believe in one less God then others.
The real fun starts when they believe in the SAME God, like Jews, Christians and Muslims who fight whose God is better. It is the same identical God.

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[mrvan]

Hey! A conspiracy! I like a good conspiracy on Friday to kick off the weekend.

Could you point to some more dark forces that have contributed to hiding this "exposition"?

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[Chrisq]

Yes, they converted to Christianity. FTA:

Some hours later, in a live program on TV-9, Sanal explained his findings and accused the concerned Catholic Church officials of miracle mongering, as they were beating the big drum for the drippling Jesus statue with aggressive PR measures and by distributing photographs certifying the “miracle”. A heated debate began, in which the five church people, among them Fr. Augustine Palett, the priest of Our Lady of Velankanni church, and representatives of the Association of Concerned Catholics (AOCC) demanded that Sanal apologize. But Sanal refused and argued against them. [The whole TV program is recorded. You can watch an abridged version of it on YouTube.]

Misreporting - India doesn't have blasphemy laws

[Chrisq]

There must be some misreporting since India doesn't have blasphemy laws. As a speculation they may be trying to use the "hate speech" laws.

Re:Blashphemy???

[JAlexoi]

Everyone can clearly see how foolish everyone else's religion is. For some reason not many can turn the same critical eye on their own.

There is an actual logical conflict. I might be mistaken, but at least two of those gods are in eternal combat and the followers of one are "morally" obligated to hate the other.

Tantra Challenge

[Holammer]

Sanal Edamaruku, the man mentioned in the article is already a bit of a celebrity in sceptics circles. Read the Wikipedia page on him and check Youtube for the "Tantra Challenge".

'The internet: where religions come to die'

[TapeCutter]

I grew up in the 60's and 70's, my mum was a sunday school teacher up until I was about 6-7, I still remeber overhearing her saying to dad something like "I'm brainwashing my own kids", after that she quit and started encouraging me to read aboriginal dreamtime stories ( not as fact but to demonstrate there were lots of different 'stories' ). It probably helped that my dad was an engineer.

Anyway, my anectdotal experience over the last 50 odd years, plus a bunch of census stats from the US and around the world, tells me that people have turned their back on religion in droves during my lifetime. I agree it started with the sexual revolution in the 60's, but it has been accelerating ever since. More recently it has been put somewhat unkindly as "the internet, where religions come to die', and I think there is a great deal of truth to that because kids will find a plethora of dreamtime stories all by themselves. From a very young age they no longer have to rely on their parents digging out obscure books from the adult library, which is something even my own 80's era kids could not do until their late teens.

Religion is loud and angry in the US right now but it's losing its power and income base (which is why they still disaprove contraception). After millenia of being at the top of the food chain in all previous civilizations they suddenly find they have to start justifying their previously unquestioned claims of 'moral authority' in society with something more substansive than 'might is right'. They find themselves in a world where more and more of their 'sheep' are no longer affraid to laugh in their face and are willing to hold them to account for their hypocricy and crimes.

I don't think I will live long enough to see it but when governments start taxing what are essentially some of the richest organisations on the planet, then you will know reason has won the day. But reason can only take us so far, at some point you just have to accept an assumption, science has boiled it all down to a handful of very basic assumptions (ie: the fundemantal forces and dimentions exist). It may boil it down further but it will always require the assumption that the real world exists and is not some sort of matrix senario where it's all in our heads.

Of course the alternative to all this social upheaval is for everyone to simply tell the truth and just admit that nethier they nor I know the answer to the existential question (Why am I here?), none of us even know if the question makes any sense in the first place. The closest thing to a rational answer that I've ever found is more a statement of fact than an answer, it's a Sagan sounbite;"We are a way for the universe to know itself".

Re:'The internet: where religions come to die'

[grege1]

I would love to think you are right. But, we are both Australian and have grown up in a country with true separation of church and state. A country that has never been overly religious and one where people have always had a healthy disregard for authority. My R.I. classes at school were truly fun. A teacher trying to teach us the way of religion and 25 kids completely ignoring him/her as if he/she was not there. Yet, they kept trying and now in Victoria they are trying to bring it all back. The result will be the same. But, this cannot be extended to the rest of the world (except perhaps our cousins in NZ). Fundamentalism is on the rise in so many paces. One of our politicians that is fighting the good fight is Nick Xenophon. He has no hesitation in condemning the ratbags when they deserve it. If a senator was so outspoken in the USA he would not be re-elected, here he is a hero. Will the Arab Spring result in a saner world or sharia law from Afghanistan to Morocco. Only time will tell.

Re:'The internet: where religions come to die'

[TapeCutter]

Nick Xenophon - Yeah, but to make up the religious nutter ratio we also have people like Family First's Mr 2% that sneak in via one of the major parties self defeating preference deals. Churches are a place for politcians to network with "influential" people, if the clergy loose their flock the politicians will throw them under the bus and chase the flock. It's the same reason politicians all dutifully line up outside Alan Jones' sound booth, he has a large and loyal audience, but not large enough to do anything other than fluking a win on a marginal seat here and there.

The last US census says the percentage of atheists jumped from 10% to 15% of the population, still a long way from the rest of the western world but increasing rapidly. I don't disagree that (western) fundementalists have become increasingly radiaclised and more demanding over the last decade or so, however I think the metaphoric temper tantarums of the religious right we are seeing are just a symptom of their diminishing influence over society. Who knows about the Arab spring, I still remeber Stevie Wonder earnestly singing "peace has come to Zimbabwe" in the early 80's and thinking; I hope he's right.

Oh and I never said Sunday school wasn't fun, but now that you mention it in the mid-sixties school in general and the bible in particular had nothing to do with 'fun'.

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[jmcvetta]

Don't let the bigmedia fool you - crazy religious nuts are only a small (but extremely vocal) minority, even in "conservative" parts of America. Even most churchgoing folks are nice, sane, civilized people who's faith is much closer to comfortable hypocrisy than fundamentalism.

Re:Blashphemy???

[AmonTheMetalhead]

Yoyu forgot the part where he becomes a zombie

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[Barsteward]

they are also republican presidential candidates. why don't the "nice, sane, civilised" rise up and kick out the nut jobs? probably scared of being sent to hell

Who is the father of the Big bang Theory?

[Anonymous Coward]

Father Georges-Henri Lemaître, SJ. Something that rationalists don't know or like to forget.

Re:Who is the father of the Big bang Theory?

[hackula]

The Vatican also owns the largest collection of astronomy records in existence...whoop dee doo. Who cares if the guy was a priest; not a true rationalist.

Re:Blashphemy???

[Truedat]

Summary: Jesus lived a long time ago, lived an eventful, possibly tragic life and people keep the faith by adopting related mannerisms in their daily lives? Yes, insightful.

Here in the UK many indulge in this strange habit of dressing in exactly the same shirt, watch 22 men kick a ball about on a field and sing hymns - sorry, songs - taunting members of the opposite religion - sorry, team.

Others have also been known to follow the writings of a sociopathic virgin. There are even statues of him in London

I am NOT commenting on whether you are right or wrong in your obvious (and may I say not very original) attempt to portray religion as ludicrous. I AM commenting on the fact that you are singling out wider human traits.

Why the fuck is this on slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

What possible angle is there? It isn't news for nerds. It isn't stuff that matters. It's a also-in-the-news story from halfway around the world.

I DO NOT CARE ABOUT RELIGION IN INDIA. I CARE ABOUT LINUX AND SUCHWHAT.

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[Opportunist]

'America? That is the development from barbarity to decadence without the detour through culture'.

--George Clemenceau

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[jmcvetta]

That - or scared of the social disapproval and abuse from aggressive religious loudmouths in their community.

Heinlein said best

[assertation]

"Of all the strange crimes that humanity has legislated out of nothing, blasphemy is the most amazing - with obscenity and indecent exposure fighting it out for second and third place."

- Robert Heinlein, sci-fi author, "Notebooks of Lazarus Long"

Re:Fuck you, racist.

[couchslug]

Muslims are not a race. Religion is not race.

All religion is superstition therefore worthy of utter contempt. Religions are LIES. Fight back. Lies are not worthy of respect or defense, nor are liars!

Again, RELIGION is NOT RACE. If it were, you couldn't "convert" without a DNA change.

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[gtall]

Yes, and George Clemenceau was also one of the authors of the Versailles Treaty. You remember, the one that more or less guaranteed a re-militarization of Germany to regain their "honor" and start WWII. So you'll forgive me if I fail to take his opinions seriously.

Re:Fuck you, racist.

[oztiks]

Yes, and what fetches me is the stance of the type of atheist whom don't just dismiss religion and spirituality but belittle those who follow or practice as such.

Religion is the epicentre of civilisation and cultural backbone to everything we have, all the way back to cavemen worshiping the sun. Though much of dogma has been surpassed by science we must not ridicule our intellectual roots for without the capacity to create religion is to be without the capacity to understand anything more than our animal counterparts.

Religion and it's evolution was our science without science, categorize the unknown. And why do we do that? to shed our fears of what cannot be comprehended but present rational. Science answers what religion didn't let's say demonic possession as an example, excorisim as ridged as it is was created to manage it. Now we have a science that manages and classifies it as mental illness but to claim excorism was completely ineffective is idiotic and unscientific.

Re:Hopefully - HA!

[gtall]

"Catholics may be many things (cough*child molesters*cough)", I see. So a bunch of never married priests have bad sexual predilections makes Catholics pedophiles? That's some reasoning you have there. Maybe you could have it checked at your neighborhood logic clinic.

Rationalist International - a fascinating group.

[BrainLesion]

I read about the Indian Rationalist Association - precursor to the Rationalist International organization - recently in the Greg Egan sci-fi novel Teranesia - not a great sci-fi novel, but it had an interesting take on this group. These guys are aggressively atheist, on a kind of mission to combat the sometimes-harmful superstitious beliefs and "miracles" that are very common in India religious culture. Fascinating group - Edamaruku is their current president. The RI includes among its members Dr. Leakey and Dr. Dawkins.

My favorite is their nickname - "Guru Busters"

Wiki on the IRA
Rationalist International Webpage

Why tolerance is a virtue.

[hey!]

I think it is often not error per se that is destructive, it is the quixotic impulse to *correct error in others*. That impulse to try can turn any belief, even *justifiable*. belief, into something harmful.

The problem with self-righteousness is that it leads to faulty, emotion-driven reasoning. As the emotional temperature of a disagreement increases, confirmation bias kicks in, along with straw man arguments and cherry picking of evidence on both sides. The disagreement is no longer confined to its rational scope because we're no longer looking for truth, we're looking for ammunition.

The plain fact is that appointing yourself the corrector of other people's erroneous belief is stupid. It's madness to think you can confront other people that way and expect them to react with open-mindedness. What you will do is provoke a defensive response, and then a counter-examination of your *own* belief and behavior. Since none of us really deduces everything we believe, or fully considers the morality of every one of our actions, the people we are presuming to correct will have plenty of ammunition.

And when our beliefs and behavior are attacked, will *we* react rationally? How often have you seen somebody react to a counter-charge of hypocrisy by saying, "you know, you've got a point there, I should do better," ? Of *course* we react irrationally to other people's defensive counter-attacks on us.

Some people seem to think "tolerance" means saying every belief is equally true, or every act equally justifiable. No. What tolerance means is putting a lid on our emotional, knee-jerk reactions to what other people think. Doing that enables us to restrict the scope of the disagreement to the issue at hand. Giving our self-righteous impulses reign escalates a disagreement into a pissing match in which each side strives to demonize the other while painting itself as victim.

Re:Why tolerance is a virtue.

[master_p]

If someone says to me "you are incorrect for such and such reason", I will examine his argument, and if I cannot form a counterargument, I will say "you are correct".

If people put their emotions above logic, it is not my mistake.

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[Thuktun]

I can't find this news on any indian news site (timesofindia, rediff, ibnlive). Where does this blog writer get his news from?

The first rule about blasphemy charges is that you don't talk about blasphemy charges.

You can't debunk religeon with science

[sl4shd0rk]

Most people won't understand how water can travel uphill. Besides, as long as the "believers" aren't hurting anyone, why fck with them? Leave 'em alone to believe whatever they want. You're just going to come across looking like you're calling them stupid, simple, ignorant or wrong and that never goes over well with anyone. Agree to disagree and leave it at that.

Re:You can't debunk religeon with science

[Yosho]

If the believers are even capable of criminalizing somebody for "blasphemy," then they're already hurting people and need to be stopped.

Madness

[microbox]

For the christian fundamentalists, everyone else is at fault, and they know everything, and if they don't get the final say, then they are being oppressed. The "oppressed" bully is always blaming the victim. Sometimes sarcasm and contempt are the perfect responses.

Of course, we could start a plan to change the way the bible is taught in Sunday school, in order to present all perspectives on the issue. But that would be sheer madness -- right? right?

Re:Madness

[FrootLoops]

Sometimes sarcasm and contempt are the perfect responses.

I don't think so. A sarcastic, contemptuous response might make one person feel better, but the other person will just dig their heels in and reason that the first person has to stoop to poor debate methods so must be fundamentally wrong. The converse can hold: in debating fundamentalist Christians, sometimes they'll be particularly respectful to me (clearly trying to "show Christ's love for others" or similar), which is about the only part of their argument that holds any sway with me.

I rather like your "present the debate" idea in Sunday School.

Re:Fuck you, racist.

[Scarletdown]

I was aware of you being sarcastic. I may or may not have been myself. Only Lynx knows for sure, and that is a secret she may or may not reveal. ;)

There's no fun

[Danzigism]

In fundamentalism.

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[morgauxo]

Dumb 'peopel'? Hmm... Why don't you tell us?

Re:Fuck you, racist.

[hackula]

May the FSM send much Pesto upon you with his holy and delicious noodley appendages.

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[mcgrew]

India wasn't the cradle of civilization, the middle east was. And Indians are Hindu, not Muslim. Islam has the same roots as Judism and Christianity, but is nothing like the Hindu religion. Bhuddism is to Hinduism what Christianity is to Judism.

This brings a STNG episode to mind, the one where Kaless comes back from the dead and Worf discovers he's a clone cooked up by the Klingon High Priests.

Re:Blashphemy???

[Black Parrot]

Everyone can clearly see how foolish everyone else's religion is. For some reason not many can turn the same critical eye on their own.

Indeed - atheism being the classic example of this

Most foolish of all is the belief that opting out of religion is a religion.

Opiate of the Masses

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Was NOT actually a slam on religion in specific. It's a quote from Marx, and if you dial in your handy dandy time machine you will notice that when he wrote that the ONLY massive pain killer (that really really worked) was opium. What he meant was that religion gives people a way to get through the misery of their existence. That it is a bunch of made up fairy tales is a big problem, but that's not the point - it IS the opiate of the masses. In today's terms you might think of it as the Demerol of the masses, or the Oxycontin of the masses. It is addictive and it does remove pain, in this case, existential grief and misery. So, is religion to be dispensed with? Yes, but only if the proletariat are possessed of their knowledge of class consciousness and are actively engaged with appropriating the means of production and are collectively determining the fruits of their surplus labour, i.e., they have substituted their belief in an imaginary friend with that of a belief in the the eschatology of class struggle.

Idiocracy has arrived

[gestalt_n_pepper]

At least in the Indian government. Unfortunately, they too must pander to morons to get re-elected. Sadly, some things are universal.

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[daem0n1x]

Don't forget peopel who can't spell, also.

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[NeutronCowboy]

Is that why Santorum at some point had a shot at getting the Republican nomination? Granted, things finally turned around, but for a while there, it wasn't obvious that Romney would beat Santorum. Don't forget that Santorum was governor of Pennsylvania, too.

We're not at that level of crazy yet, but there are plenty of people working feverishly to achieve parity with India and Saudia Arabia.

Re:Fuck you, racist.

[geekoid]

"all the way back to cavemen worshiping the sun"

Argument from antiquity.

Anyways, Religion isn't needed any more.

Religion for a while, was good at consolidating smart people and money.
Of course it did that through fear and death. No, its no longer needed, hasn't been needed for over 100 years.

"...excorism was completely ineffective is idiotic and unscientific."
That is there stupidest thing I have read. You now nothing of exorcism*. It did nothing to help anyone except the power of the church. It didn't manage anything. Yes, some mental illness made them think of demonic possession(even though that idea was also fabricated by the church)

Let me be very clear:
Exorcism was completely ineffective. Unless you consider killing people an effective treatment.

* Basically torturing people who are anywhere from epileptic, to just different. One step away from burning witches.

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[geekoid]

Yo should take his opinion seriously. He manged to get a country that was starving to being the biggest global force.

You may not agree with the man, but you should seriously think about the things he said.

Indeed!

[LanMan04]

Religious folks think all religions EXCEPT ONE are nonsense/not true.

Atheists just take it one religion further.

Re:Blashphemy???

[Creedo]

You're referring to transubstantiation. It's really convoluted, and I'm not Catholic, but the opening of the Wiki article implies the physical attributes of the wine and bread aren't altered, even though the "substance" changes to that of Christ's flesh and blood (no idea what that means). My crude opinion is that they made up an invisible attribute so their crazy theory can't be proven wrong by a simple autopsy.

You are both both correct. Both of those churches teach that the Eucharistic species(bread and wine) changes into the actual body and blood of Jesus. The Orthodox generally take the Eucharist under both forms each time(usually a small piece of bread soaked in wine on a spoon), while the Catholic take only the bread(though it is becoming more common for there to be Eucharistic ministers who offer the wine as well). The Catholics believe that both the body and blood are represented in both species(not sure on the Orthodox belief here).

Now, the Orthodox are not going to use the term "transubstantiation" with their rejection of scholasticism, so they'd use the term "metousiosis." In either case, both churches(recognizing that church is a flexible word here) insulate themselves from actually having to prove such ludicrous claims by claiming that there is a difference between what a thing "IS" and what its physical properties are. Eucharistic miracles were commonly claimed in early Catholic tradition, often times in conjunction with a persecution of Jews, who were held to use consecrated hosts as victims in private rituals. This nonsense has cost real people their lives, and it's quite disgusting. Even today, Catholics get upset about host desecration(see PZ Myers' Crackergate).

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[mcgrew]

why don't the "nice, sane, civilised" rise up and kick out the nut jobs?

Matthew 5:5 and Luke 6:37 are why.

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[cpu6502]

>>>. The US has managed to catch up in insanity much, much faster.

Not true. Today the U.S. enjoys MORE freedom of (and from) religion than ever before. Most states (until ~1850) had an official religion which their citizens were required to support through taxation.

Today we have no such tyranny... so we are now MORE free than were the 1st and 2nd generation of the Founding Fathers.

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[cpu6502]

>>>it wasn't obvious that Romney would beat Santorum

Yeah it was. Santorum was not on the ballot in 3 states, and had already lost the first ~10 states (except Iowa). It was statistically impossible for him to get enough delegates to win.

>>>Don't forget that Santorum was governor of Pennsylvania, too.

No he was a Senator.
And Pennsylvania fired him, once they discovered how corrupt he was. (Ditto Senator Specter.)

Re:Fuck you, racist.

[mapkinase]

The original poster mixed up two things. In case of Indian Mushrks, he discovered a fraud, in case of Kuweit, it's about a law.

Muslims do not have a history of arranged miracles, except may be very deviant sects, in the first place, because one of fundamental principles is belief in UNSEEN.

I find the original juxtaposition of those two events : law in Kuweit and fraud in India, aribrrary, absurd and ignorant.

Are we allowed to quote the Quran?

[bhlowe]

Muhammad's sexual antics are an embarrassment to those Muslims who are aware of them. This is particularly so for their prophet's consummation of his marriage to Aisha when she was only nine years of age. The thought of a 52-year-old man sleeping and bathing with a young girl is intensely unpleasant and it reflects the disgusting character of a sexual glutton rather than a holy man. Critics even allege that Muhammad was a pedophile. Exerpted from http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/025-Muhammads-sex-life.htm

Re:Hopefully - HA!

[Grishnakh]

Actually, he did: " "holy" water, or holy fake blood, or holy fake cannibalism crackers"
Those things are unique to Catholicism.

Usual SOP for Indian Christian Church

[Magnus Pym]

The Indian Christian Church (at least some of them) have a history of doing stuff like this; the aggressive conversion tactics they have adopted will put most US fundamentalist churches to shame. During a trip out there a few years ago, I witnessed a priest perform a "your Hindu god is false" demonstration in public field, accompanied by (I kid you not) an orchestra, with the entire performance amplified by huge speakers placed all around. The priest was dressed in robes reminiscent of a medieval Pope, and threw a Hindu Idol and a Cross into a big glass tank of water. The Hindu Idol sank, and the cross floated, and the guy exclaimed that this showed that the Hindu god was a false god. It was obvious that the idol was made of stone and the cross of wood. There was a huge crowd standing by, many of them ooh'd and aah'd. It looked like at least some of the ooh'ers were part of the performance. I went up to the priest and challenged him, and he started yelling at me. Some of his acolytes grabbed me and basically pushed me away from the place. I think I would surely have been beaten up if I had not been a foreigner.

I learned later that this sort of stuff is quite common in India. The church has started Christian ceremonies during mainstream Indian festivals like Diwali etc, during which time theys hold huge, extravagant masses to celebrate supposedly Christian events. If you are a student of history and want to know how "Christmas" ultimately ended up in December, this would be an object lesson.

The thing that amazed me was how tolerant the crowds were. Here was a guy who was yelling insults about the mainstream religion in a public place, and a vast crown just watched and let him have his say in peace. I doubt if this would happen in the US, let alone in any predominantly Islamic place.

Re:Usual SOP for Indian Christian Church

[TheSync]

The church has started Christian ceremonies during mainstream Indian festivals like Diwali etc, during which time theys hold huge, extravagant masses to celebrate supposedly Christian events.

Which parallels how we got today's "Christmas" on Dec. 25, a Christian attempt to pick up on existing Roman pagan solstice celebrations around the honoring of Bacchus.

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[NeutronCowboy]

He was fired for being corrupt, not for being a sanctimonious douche bag? Kinda my point. And he might have lost the first few states, but they were basically all proportionate - once he pulled even with Romney in Iowa and polled ahead of Romney in a number of other states, it was hard to tell what was going to happen. Romney can thank his money and organizational skills for pulling this off.

Re:Fuck you, racist.

[oztiks]

Hahahahahah .... And I present you with my example ...

Exorcism did work, placebo effect still means it worked for some even if the success rate was low. Burning witches and the control issue whatever this attitude comes from too many idiots watching the Da Vinci code and passing it off as law and is based on opinion and hearsay.

"Some" religions were "perhaps" created to control the masses, there are plenty that were not but this argument i see as mute since we are so awakened now as a people that control of the masses has been transmuted from biblical passages into database variables stored in banks.

Religion does have its place, it has historical value and its base moral values hold much importance to the world. Blaming it for the worlds ills is poor judgement.

Raping kids, killing infidels, torturing, etc. These were done by bad people not by religion, bringing religion into it is fucking tragic - rule #1 do unto others. Anything else is the work of ones own wickedness nothing more.

Re:Fuck you, racist.

[mcgrew]

I was being sarcastic. Since many ( but not all ) religious people would have told him instead to go burn in hell.

I'm glad you said "but not all". You'll find two kinds of people in a Christian church: those who want good for everyone, and hypocrites who don't read the bibles they thump. There are also churches with preachers who are the wolves in sheep's clothing, like a cartain chucrh in Florida demonstrating at soldiers' funerals with "God hates fags" plackards. God loves everyone, and we are supposed to, too.

God even loves atheists. He even loves terrorists. Believe it or not, he even loves Newt Gingrich. Man, that's a hard thing to do.

I spent a year in Thailand, and can say that I never met a single person in that Bhuddist country who would want anyone burning in hell. Those were some of the nicest, friendliest people I ever met.

Mod FLAMEBAIT

[c 0xFF]

Thus is so utterely stupid and ill-informed it's no even funny. I'll leave it to others to debunk these points, but please mode, do your job. The only thing informative about this post is what it tells us about the submitter.

Re:Blashphemy???

[shutdown -p now]

You aren't the least bit surprised to learn that Hinduism of all things has blasphemy laws? They have millions of gods, for Christs sake. Does this mean you have to respect every single one of them? How is it even possible??

Historically, in pagan societies, it was perfectly normal to respect "other" gods, while keeping your faith in yours. After all, if you already believe in a dozen, why shouldn't there be a dozen more? It was also quite normal to pay homage to those other gods when you were in a foreign land where they presumably held more sway. For another example, during the unification of Kievan Rus, while it was still pagan, Varyag rulers practiced a form of syncretism where the gods of newly conquered Slavic tribes were added to the circle in their main temple for worship, alongside all existing gods - it was considered apropos, since young men from those tribes would then join the unified military force, and therefore their gods needed to be appeased to watch over them for the good of force as a whole.

If you look at it from that perspective, it also makes sense to have blasphemy laws - if you blaspheme someone else's god, from a pagan perspective, the only reason to do so is to explicitly show disrespect. It's also why Christian and Muslim preachers were often received very poorly in pagan communities, even where several different faiths have co-existed before - because, rather than do the "expected sensible thing" and just put a statue of their Jesus alongside all other gods, they demanded that all other statues should rather be removed.

Without God or Religion

[painandgreed]

Think about only this: without the excuse of God, how many politicians would have to find another way to persuade us to follow them in their quest to serve their buddies' interests.

Without God, people would just use ideologies and do the same things they were doing before. Without ideologies, people would be motivated by nationalities and other political formations. Without nationalities, people would just group up with their local tribes or ethnic cultures to promote them. Without tribes, people would just do the same things to promote their families and clans. Without families or clans, people would still persuade people for financial gain, which has been argued is the actual motivation behind all the previous methods described including religion and the excuse of God.

Re:Without God or Religion

[master_p]

Well, I'd rather have things like ideology instead of religion. At the very least, there would be no metaphysical mumbo jumbo, which science and logic would not have to face.

Re:Hopefully - HA!

[willpb]

Then of course there's the Mormons, who believe in the Bible the way the regular Protestants do for the most part, but then they add a whole new book about Jesus coming to visit a bunch of fictional civilizations in the Americas before Europeans got there

There is plenty of archeological evidence pointing to advanced civilizations in what is now the Eastern United States. The Hopewell Culture for example flourished around the same time as one of the groups described in the Book of Mormon. There is also evidence that native americans had the ten commandments and that there were precolumbian horses.

If Christ had followers in America, why woudn't he visit them, he even spoke of doing so in John 10:16.

Re:Blashphemy???

[Cederic]

no no, he became a lich.

http://www.theendishere.org/zombie-jesus-lich-jesus/

Re:Fuck you, racist.

[ElectricTurtle]

Exorcism did work, placebo effect still means it worked for some even if the success rate was low.

I'm sure all the dead epileptics are so happy for the few mild schizophrenics who managed to get talked out of their mental difficulties.

Burning witches and the control issue whatever this attitude comes from too many idiots watching the Da Vinci code [...]

No, it comes from Leviticus where Yahweh's mouthpiece says 'suffer not a witch to live'. It was incorporated from these Judaic roots into Christianity's modus operandi with such early events as the brutal murder of Hypatia by an angry mob. The tradition extended all the way through to the Salem witch trials in the West, and continues to this day in parts of Africa where vigilantes still murder 'witches' in the names of their supposedly benevolent and merciful deities in the ludicrous triune monotheism. Not to pick solely on Christianity, the Islamic courts in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia use the full force and authority of the state to behead 'witches' whenever they are exposed and arrested.

[...] there are plenty that were not [...]

Name some. Religion is an extension of hierarchical power structures that use a fictional separation from mortality as a substitute for moral authority. The argument essentially proceeds from 'gods are more powerful than men therefore they are right' which made sense when it was formulated in the paleolithic.

Raping kids, killing infidels, torturing, etc. These were done by bad people not by religion, bringing religion into it is fucking tragic - rule #1 do unto others. Anything else is the work of ones own wickedness nothing more.

How convenient that when bad things are done in the name of religion that it is just the work of bad people, but when good things are done with the same religious authority, then that demonstrates not that it is people who are good regardless of religion, but rather that religion has some sort of inherent value. Nope. That is ridiculous. People do bad things and good things irrespective of religion, so religions can and should be judged on their intrinsic qualities, which is usually to say their 'sacred texts'. These texts are invariably contradictory, saying 'love thy neighbor' one minute and that gays and disobedient kids are 'worthy of death' the next minute (Romans 1). The Quran has the same schizophrenia, alternately preaching tolerance and hate, uncoincidentally contextualized by Islam's own expansion and relative security.

These are very convenient devices, because it means that religion can display a nice face to the world and then preach murder and hate behind closed doors, fostering jihadists and abortion clinic bombers. Both are sourced in the same place, the fundamental supposedly divine authority of their so-called illuminated texts. Only people do good and evil things, and because religion itself is a construct of people, it too is layered with the good and bad ideas and actions of the people who created it.

Re:Hopefully - HA!

[Grishnakh]

Your wikipedia article even states that real archaeologists believe the Los Lunas stone to be a fraud. And any link to byu.edu is not a valid reference; that's like linking to scientology.org as a reference to back up their wacky claims about Xenu and the Galactic Confederation. Yes, there certainly were cultures that existed before Europeans arrived: the Mayas, Aztecs, and Incas are the most prominent. But archaeological evidence bears no resemblance to what's stated in the Book of Mormon.

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[Tarlus]

If religion disappeared, then the crazy religious nuts would just be crazy nuts. And they would just find other bases for their crazy nuttiness.

Re:Fuck you, racist.

[ultranova]

Anyways, Religion isn't needed any more.

I'm not so sure of that. If we assume that religions were invented by people, it follows that people have some inborn instincts towards making and believing in them - a tendency towards faith. It would probably be far better to have the people with such instincts direct them towards established religions that have had centuries or millenias to become civilized and shed most of their nasty parts, than leave them easy prey to whatever charismatic cult leaders pop up every now and then. And it certainly is much better for them to direct any need for worship towards God or gods than Kim il Whatever.

Religion might be opium for the masses, but trying to make them quit will only result in them switching to crack cocaine.

Re:Hopefully - HA!

[willpb]

There were many ancient american civilizations and it's possible that some of them may have been the ones described in the Book of Mormon.
I linked to the BYU article because it's a scholarly article explaining the evidence for precolumbian horses in America. Critics often say that because the natives weren't riding horses when Columbus arrived there weren't any which is false. Centuries-old bones of horses unearthed in Carlsbad Remains Show Ancient Horses Were Hunted for Their Meat.

There's not enough archaelogical evidence left behind to definitively rule either way. However, the Hopewell Culture did have an advanced writing system, clothing, agriculture, trade, fortifications and earth mounds; all of which are described in the Book of Mormon. They also disappeared at the same time as recorded. I see the evidence of a great civilization that lived here before us and we are very fortunate to have their record.

Re:Fuck you, racist.

[oztiks]

How convenient that when bad things are done in the name of government that it is just the work of bad people, but when good things are done with the same government authority, then that demonstrates not that it is people who are good regardless of government, but rather that government has some sort of inherent value. Nope. That is ridiculous. People do bad things and good things irrespective of government, so governments can and should be judged on their intrinsic qualities, which is usually to say their 'laws'. These laws are invariably contradictory, saying 'love thy neighbor' one minute and that gays and disobedient kids are 'worthy of death' the next minute (Romans 1). The Quran has the same schizophrenia, alternately preaching tolerance and hate, uncoincidentally contextualized by Islam's own expansion and relative security.

These are very convenient devices, because it means that government can display a nice face to the world and then preach murder and hate behind closed doors, fostering jihadists and abortion clinic bombers. Both are sourced in the same place, the fundamental supposedly divine authority of their so-called illuminated texts. Only people do good and evil things, and because government itself is a construct of people, it too is layered with the good and bad ideas and actions of the people who created it.

FTFY

Re:Blashphemy???

[dead_cthulhu]

I was raised Catholic, so I got exposed to that silly bit of dogma at an early age. The whole bit where "it looks and tastes the same" is basically hand waved as some sort of divine mystery to explain why it doesn't taste like Soylent Green.. Even though I was only seven when they started trying to drill that stuff into my head, my bullshit detector was already developed enough to start critically examining and disbelieving the whole thing.

Re:Blashphemy???

[Zontar The Mindless]

Keeping a little statue of Ganesha next to the servers at work is not necessarily a bad thing.

The Buddhas in my study don't seem to mind him, either. :)

Back to the Dark Ages We Go!

[Somebody is Grar]

Between these stories on the other side of the world and the fundamentalist nutjobs over here, I think the religulous are getting it sewn up.

Blasphemy is a capital offense?

[HArchH]

Well God damnit. Does it upset that shithead Mohammed? Oh wait. He's dead. What the f*^+ does his ass care?

More seriously, and less profane, what did the guy in India do his proof of fakery for? Was he trying to be boastful, or was he trying to extort money from the priests? Why didn't he leave the believers alone and let them believe? Was it causing him some problem, other than his own arrogance?

If you have faith leave those alone that don't. If you don't leave those alone that do. Look at Malaysia. An Islamic country where you can buy a drink if your faith permits and can't if it doesn't. What could be more obvious?

Standard

[ananthap]

Get the cops on your side. The local beat cop who is probably a semi-literate "p-w-cracker" like person and benefits from the take and bribe of regulating the crowds at the "miracle" site and his station house officer (precinct head) are told to arrest the so called perpetrator for blasphemy. When that fails, some lawyer will file a complaint against the "so called perpetrator" for hurting religious sentiments. Note that it has to be a lawyer since cops wont arrest him easily and it gives a veneer of legality. Sounds familiar? The idea is to harass and cow down the more determined citizens. OK

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[szilagyi]

That depends where you draw the line. I personally draw it somewhere around "believes in ghosts", but let me pick a less controversial goalpost, which I think all the reasonable people I know would agree with, particularly including the religious ones: most Americans thought evolution is false in 2009. (Good news! Percentage down since 2004.)

That does not include those who believe evolution was guided by God. It only includes those who believe God created humans in their present form, i.e., we didn't evolve. However, it does include those who believe we didn't actually evolve, but God created the universe to appear in every way as if we did. That's not a scientifically testable hypothesis, so is compatible with all the evidence for evolution. As far as I know, there aren't many people that believe this without also claiming literal truth of the bible (which is testable and appears to be false, absent the God-faked-the-physical-world escape clause). However, I'm not an expert in the demography of American Christian fundamentalists.

Other different sources, with different phrasings of the question, include: just below 40% in 2006; 39% in 2009; 40% in 2010; 41% in 2011. So the CBS numbers are higher than most, but you would have a hard time arguing that it's much less than 40%.

Now, most churchgoing folks are indeed nice, sane, civilized people. But fundamentalism is not a "big media" invention; there is a real, serious problem with people believing, and therefor potentially acting, counter-factually.

Now, I am an atheist. I recognize that faith and science are compatible. Make any untestable statement you want, as long as you recognize that it's an article of faith. Science only deals with testable claims and the physical world. We may have more nuanced disagreements about morality, rationality of faith, etc. However, the argument above doesn't enter into metaphysics or moral philosophy. It just says: if a religious fundamentalist is someone who denies scientific facts on a religious basis, then we have a lot of them in the US, not a tiny minority.

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[RockDoctor]

Inadequate quality control

In the Indian press.

[ananthap]

Here is an extract from the "Times of India" article. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/FIR-against-rationalist-cops-call-him-for-questioning/articleshow/12681927.cms Note the excuse made by those who complained. MUMBAI: The Juhu police have registered an FIR against president of the Indian Rationalist Association (IRA) Sanal Edamaruku under Section 295 (defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class) of the Indian Penal Code. The police have called him for questioning. The Organisation of Concerned Catholics (OCC) and the Catholic Secular Forum (CSF) had lodged complaints against Sanal at the Juhu and Andheri police stations. Sanal had come to the city recently to investigate the issue of water dripping from a cross at Irla. Sanal, whose trip was sponsored by a TV channel, had said that the phenomenon was not a miracle and caused by capillary action. OCC members said they were not upset with Sanal for saying the phenomenon was not a miracle. They were hurt by statements he allegedly made against the Pope and Catholic clergy.

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[jwhitener]

Why was Rick Santorum in the running so long in the primaries?

Re:Blashphemy???

[KeensMustard]

Indeed - atheism being the classic example of this

Most foolish of all is the belief that opting out of religion is a religion.

Since atheism does not equate to opting out of religion, this is somewhat of a non-sequitur. I'm not even sure that it is possible to 'opt out' of belief in the normal usage of the phrase anyway. Either you think an assertion is true or you do not.

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[WOOFYGOOFY]

Yeah but it wouldn't have the built in authority of the Almighty Final Authority.

Religious people all suck ,

Re:Fuck you, racist.

[TFAFalcon]

Or we could assume people have an instinct toward believing things their parents/elders teach them. And those elders were once the same. If you go back far enough you usually find a guy who decided that it would be nice if young people gave him 1/3 of their food so he could sit around eating mushrooms.

Re:Cradle of Civilization My Ass

[19thNervousBreakdown]

You apparently don't have a Facebook account. They're not that small of a minority.